The glass buildings shimmered the mirage of a hot morning sun, but winter’s grasp hadn’t yielded to the warmth of spring. February had ended all too abruptly, too fast, with the promises for tomorrow yet undreamt. In the alley below, a cold wind rushed through. It shuffled papers, lifted the hem of a woman’s dress, and whispered, “Hurry up.” I was lost in thought, battling not with a dream but a reality. Then I realized I still held the shift key pressed, and I had been aimlessly hunting for the cap ‘T’ for too long. The office thermostat was set to a balmy, tropical temperature, the copy department rank and full of smoke. The white fur of the zebra head hanging on the wall was stained yellow from nicotine saturating the air, and its stripes had grown wavy as if they might melt from the mount like a Salvador Dali timepiece. The editorial staff was in a frenzy. The new cover illustration—a leopard or was it a jaguar?—the spots didn’t match up. The entire fifth floor from copy boy to production artist had joined the debate—when someone cried out, “Ten o’clock!”
The doors of the cocktail credenza swung open, followed by “Who’s thirsty?”
“Make mine a double,” I replied as I kicked my feet atop a badly scarred desk.
I sipped the bourbon, watched a fat fly walk sideways on a sweaty window, then decided enough was too much.
At last—a ring from my phone and the call I had been eagerly anticipating. It was Human Resources. I took a deep breath, then smiled as a very bland voice delivered colorful news that the corporate cabin was available for the weekend.
If ever a soul needed escape, it was me. My fevered mind could no longer think; there were too many thoughts within and too much noise outside for any semblance of clarity. The clatter and bang of the city was hurting my head.
I was doubly sick: a lust in my veins and an ache in my heart—a man torn between two lovers.
I never intended to be unfaithful. Suppose they all say that. I did love Agnes.
She was lovely, thin, and self-assured. She had more of a sway than a walk and her beautiful red hair bounced on her shoulders in such a sexy way. But her red hair was a lie and her easy demeanor conflicted the hot-natured, short-tempered reputation other fire-haired members of her gender so robustly gloat in. Our temperamental passion, which teetered between smoldering and frigid, had consistently become the latter. Nevertheless, she bore a certain feminine mystique, a je ne sais quoi, a mystery she protected inside the secret chambers of her heart I never fully accessed or understood. What was she truly capable of? Passion, romance, sin, any, all, none? I had tired of trying to figure her out. This mystery was corrosive.
The nearly a decade we had been together had become a decade of slow death. Til death do us part was beginning to feel like a life sentence and the ring on my finger might as well had been a noose around my neck. To her, marriage was a covenant. It should’ve been to me as well. But I was indifferent to Agnes’ modus operandi—faith and devotion was an outrageous assumption. She put too much trust in me when a bit of jealousy would’ve gone a long way. This certainty was but an ineffectual marital appendage I resented more and more. I do not claim to be a monk and monogamy is a very heavy burden in a relationship irregularly cultivated. Particularly in the big city—Corbett’s man-eating tigers mere kittens in comparison to the frisky members of the opposite sex stalking the streets and lurking in the offices.
I suppose I was prime for something to happen. Then it did.
Albeit, as introverted as we were upon first moving to the city, we, or rather Agnes, had evolved into quite the socialite. The poster couple for marital bliss—at parties, the many parties, the parties bloated with strange faces, weak conversation, and fake smiles buried at the bottom of a flute of stale champagne, we mingled about arm-in-waist, finishing each other’s sentences. But we were only borrowing; behind closed doors we hardly spoke a word.
It was at one these gatherings that I met Lara.
Lara was well-bred, a dame of good taste, the money to indulge it, the beauty to embrace it. Her blonde hair long, glossy, wavy à la Veronica Lake, draped over the edges of her porcelain oval face. She tapped me on my shoulder, asked me to dance, and when her lips brushed my ear it was over before either of us knew what was happening.
She was impulsive and arrogant, but the more arrogance she exhibited, the more it turned me on—and on. A Venus in delicate lace, her transparent gaze often hid less than her pastel-colored negligés. I knew what she wanted. She always wanted it. Mentally, we were pathetically inadequate, but sexually it was spectacular.
She had begun to demand more than weekly rendezvous. Her dependency, which had at first seemed so alluring had become a bore and her clinginess more and more suffocating; still, she did maintain her biological advantages. She wanted more—wanted me all to herself. A vicious claim she had laid to my loins. But my heart—unsure.
Besides, I owed it to Agnes and myself. I was dogged and determined to sort this out properly—no distractions.
I suppose Agnes had become a bit burned out as well, or maybe her feminine intuition had sounded the alarm that something was awry. Getting away from it all had actually been her idea. She was a sporty girl. She loved to hunt and fish. I used to take her along with me, but it had been awhile. Lara and her lissome curves on the other hand . . . doubtless I could ever imagine her outdoors. Her idea of roughing it was getting her back sunburned on the French Riviera.
Regardless, I had tired of low-voiced and tentative phone conversations, penthouse rendezvous and well-kept secrets. The treadmill of marriage and the juggling of a mistress was wearing on me—I was man enough for just one woman.
But it was 11 a.m. with only more work ahead of me. And so, with my mind on everything except the ballistics review of a Holland and Holland Nitro Express, I grabbed my fedora, dropped by HR, turned in my leave, and picked up the keys to the cabin.
“See you Monday,” I chattered to the full-body lion mount prowling the lobby and I exited the revolving door.
When I arrived home Agnes was waiting—car packed, fishing gear and all. She was dressed in a green flannel blouse, Capri jeans with bare calves, and deck shoes. Her hair was held carefully in place with a fuchsia silk scarf. She looked fabulous and appeared excited, although both seemed forced.
The drive through the countryside was swift and strange, the edges of the road lined with leafy birch and maples. They ticked off quickly as I sped along, racing against the fleeting light. Racing against the smothering confinement that threatened to confess it all—the secrets, the lies, the thousands of hours of loneliness between us.
She scooched across the leather seat, sliding closely to my side. Her scarlet fingernails drummed their way down my arm and she took my hand, clasped it, and placed it on her thigh. She smiled and seemed to brighten up, but by an effort she failed to conceal, the emotion was subdued.
I blabbered on about Robert Ruark’s latest safari with no absorbing interest on her part.
“Lets not talk business. Not this weekend,” she requested.
The road and the landscape faded away into misty woods. Then, at last, the picturesque incline to the cabin. Nestled among sheltering evergreens, it overlooked a majestic hardwood forest and lake—just beyond, the Sierra Mountains.
Everyone referred to the place as a cabin but it was more like a swanky sportsman’s pad, a cabin only in the sense that it was comprised of wood and set in nature. It was constructed in Frank Lloyd Wright fashion, with airy rooms, enormous stone fireplace, vaulted ceilings, metal-paned bay windows, Ansel Adams lithographs, hi-fi, and portable Corona typewriter—should one be inclined. Complete with the luxuries of modern appliances, the only thing rustic about it was the Derrydale fox-hunting prints, the view of the lake, and polar bear rug.
The forecast called for chilly temperatures so I immediately began to work on a stack of wood. I swung the axe vigorously, turning big logs into small ones, flaunting my masculinity and blowing off steam. I chopped enough wood for two weeks, working up a glistening sweat. Agnes, meanwhile, paced nervously about the cabin porch before leaning against a post where she lit a cigarette. At times she was a marvelous creature of great animation. She sucked hard on her cigarette, making its end glow bright orange in the low light, then puffed the smoke impatiently into the air. On her face a hint of acceptance as she watched me toil.
That night the winds freshened, littering the porch with last year’s leaves, whistling as it slipped beneath the crease of the wooden door.
We sat in silence, face to face across the table in the homey kitchenette over a cup of coffee. She sipped her cup thoughtfully. I rose, went into the great room and stoked the fire. As the flames caught I heard her walk out onto the porch. I followed behind.
Agnes, clothed in summer and wrapped in a wool blanket, wore the soft glow of moonbeams on her hair and lips. The smoke from our cigarettes curled up into the blackness. She remained familiarly distant, staring deliberately out into the night, although the light of the starswept sky twinkling in her eyes suggested invitation. There was a tranquility to her mood. During the ride, the nearer we had gotten to the cabin the quieter and more reserved she had become. She had a somberness about her as one who has reached the end of the rope and has nothing left to live for.
I wondered, Could she possibly know?
I put my arms around her. She looked up at me, smiling faintly, but the tension, the distance remained—if we could only leave it outside, leave it in the lake, go inside the cabin . . . Just maybe . . .
The man in the moon dipped low, flirting with his pale reflection, then winked and whispered promises that rippled the water’s surface. Hope emerged, then just before reaching the moon’s cheek, slipped and sank into obscurity. I wanted to grasp it, this illusion—this hope—clutch it and hold it to my chest as tightly as I held Agnes. But each time it emerged, it disappeared again, then again, and I began to wonder if it might ever resurface from its depths—stay, and if it was even worth it after all. That’s how the previous five years had been—all promises, hope, truth—just a smile, a kiss, a touch away. There was no need to reach out for it then, to grab hold of a dream and the disillusion that it was something of value. It was too late, the night, like the fire, was dying.
We woke bright and early to a breakfast of buckwheat cakes with cane syrup, strawberries, and strong black coffee.
Outside, the stars had diminished. We left the cabin and began our short hike through the trees down to the lake. The woods, quiet in the hour without color. The path we were following, black as the inside of a ball point pen. I could’ve used a light, but didn’t, I wanted the trail to be difficult and Agnes cuddled up to my backpack, her hands on my sides, hanging on my every step. Quickly the daylight broke into a brilliant banner that wrapped the land in pink and orange, while dawn’s revelers—the birds—swarmed the bushes and the sky.
The lake lay ahead. A furnace of morning light squeezed beneath a purple cloak and shimmered off the water. Agnes hurriedly rushed ahead of me to its shore.
“It’s beautiful . . . Oh look, a deer!” she exclaimed.
I raised the rods I was carrying and shouldered the butts as if a rifle. I took an imaginary shot at the deer, then swung the pretend barrel over and looked down the eyelets to the crease in Agnes’ snug sweater between her shoulder blades. Bang, the thought snaked across my mind. Then I lowered the make-believe muzzle. I felt guilty and was embarrassed at myself for having done that. I could never physically hurt her.
Almost as quickly as it had broken, the colorful sunrise of dawn ceded to a raw, gray day. A flurry of wind blew in from the north and the top of the water ruffled, then lifted, cresting into tiny whitecaps. The trees creaked and, like the dawn, seemed to speak “Not yet,” and leaned toward a time in the future—later, perhaps tonight, or tomorrow, perhaps never, and with them the promises—promises of the day, of fish, of restoration, of truth. Perhaps this truth was as I had thought all along—and nothing more.
We walked to the shoreline and breathed deeply. Agnes’ perfume lingered on the breeze—exotic and heavy—but blending well with the sweet smell of growing things, reminding me of greener days and love’s past. Could there still be any hope?
The conditions were less than ideal for fishing, but the rough water still irresistible, compelling, as was the change to Agnes’ disposition.
“You remember how to do this?” I asked as I rigged her Luxor spinning outfit.
“Ten o’clock, eleven o’clock, nine o’clock,” she very seriously mocked in a deepened voice as she false-casted with one arm, then giggled from the silliness of it.
“I guess you do,” I grinned as I handed her the rod and reel. “Alright, let’s see it.”
The silver spoon dangled heavily from the rod tip. Her brow tensed as she intently began the casting motion. “Ten o’clock, eleven o’clock, nine o’clock.”
The rod bent then flexed, and the lure propelled effortlessly from its tip and splashed at a fine distance.
“You do remember. That’s fantastic,” I jovially complimented and slapped her on the butt.
I piddled around, casting here and there, but had no genuine interest in catching fish. There was enchantment in watching Agnes.
She was a vision of beauty.
I marveled at the shy delight and dainty gracefulness with which she cast her line. And the elegance of her wading form as she swayed in careless ease—rubber hip boots framing the lower portion of her trim figure.
Izaak Walton conveyed the angler as a “companion to fill the company with wit and mirth.” My, what he would think of her . . .
Then she caught sight of me watching her.
“Like what you see?” she teased.
“Indeed,” I replied slyly.
She chuckled a bit. “You men are so easy. You’re just like fish . . . mouths open, waiting to nibble on the first pretty thing that dips her toe into the water.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” I snickered. Then considered its undertone.
“Just saying . . . if only fish were so easy,” she smugly dismissed. “I want to fly cast.”
“It’s not quite the same, but okay.” And I handed over my fly rod and reel.
“How come yours is made of wood? Ooh . . . fancy,” she kidded.
“That’s split-bamboo . . . now careful with that,” I began as she instantly went about the motion of throwing a baseball. Before I could stop her the wind caught the light fly from behind and on her forward thrust . . .
“Ouch!” she cried out, and then looked at me pleadingly. “Ouch! . . . Ouch! . . . Ouch!”
“Let me have a look,” I comforted.
The fly was embedded full-gape in the skin of her shoulder and the exposed barb was sticking out from her woolen sweater, balancing a bead of blood on its needle-sharp tip.
“It’s not so bad. It passed wholly through,” I encouraged as I rummaged through the tackle box for wire cutters and Methyl Aid.
“This won’t hurt a bit,” I assured and she grimaced when I clipped the barb. Then she howled, pain-stricken, when I backed the shank out.
“Let’s assess the damage,” I suggested.
She peeled the tight band of green sweater from her waist, hoisting it above her naked side, slipped her arm from its sleeve, and cradled its bulk to her breasts. Her pale skin blushed from the cool air, her shoulder was inflamed, whelped and bleeding. I wiped the blood away with a wet paisley handkerchief.
“This might sting a bit,” I consoled.
She winced and squeezed my hand tightly as I painted the wound with the red antiseptic.
I blew gently on her sore and tender shoulder. “Better now?” I asked sympathetically.
She nodded, then shivered a little. We found a boulder still warm from yesterday’s sun and sat together. I put my arm around her and drew her close. Maybe it was her bare shoulder, or the puff of wind that moved strands of red hair across her face, or how she rounded her lips to blow them back. Maybe it would’ve happened anyway, but I was completely spellbound. Never had a woman been more alluring. She smiled through hair matted by lake spray, tears and invitation swelling in her eyes. A flush spread slowly across her face and I kissed her soundly.
“I’ve missed this—us together—out here,” I sighed. “Why did we ever move to the city, anyway?”
“You love your work. You always wanted to write about the outdoors,” she averred.
“S’pose,” I muttered. Then my mind wandered briefly to Lara. I found it odd that I had hardly thought of her at all. For a moment I again felt the heft of two women.
“Who cares,” Agnes interrupted punctually as if reading my mind. “We’re here now, let’s not spoil it.”
She had packed a splendid little picnic lunch of sandwiches, melon slices, and a delicious orangeade laced with rye. We ate and flirted like kids, our faces dappled in the shadows of overhanging branches as fugitive sunbeams began to penetrate the overcast.
I lay back enjoying a smoke and watched a fast swallow skim the water’s surface while she picked flowers, weaving them into a wreath and placing them atop my head.
“All hail, King Caesar!” she clowned, again in that adorable deepened voice.
She put her arms around me, her long hair flying in the breeze—when she kissed me it got between our lips. Her mouth tasted of citrus and succulent melon. The deep frown on her forehead had diminished and she seemed as though she were full of spring and completely irresponsible and it was driving me mad.
“You think they’re biting now?” I asked.
“Let’s find out,” she replied with determination.
Over and over Agnes’ wind-chapped face shined with anticipation, as if each ensuing cast would produce a bite. It was then mid-afternoon. The heavy clouds of morning had fully lifted, turning from drab gray to golden, and shafts of light peeked through their creases, reflecting brightly off the water. Along the edges of the lake, sheltered by large rock boulders, dark holes could be seen. They were the deep, shadowy type, often inhabited by big fish.
I pointed this out to Agnes and persuaded her to cast in their direction. Her first attempt found the balsamy cedars hanging overhead and I spent the next half-hour retrieving the line from the branches and untangling the bird’s-nested spool.
On her second attempt the glittery spoon hit the mark, flashing light as it submerged, shifting sporadically side to side, then, just before disappearing into the depths, the golden glimmer of a trout darted toward it, and the greedy fish was hooked!
Agnes watched the line with beaming eyes, teeth biting at her rigidly parted lips. The line suddenly jerked and stiffened. The drag sang out from the reel and the line sawed through the rippled surface.
“Tighten the slack or you’ll lose him!” I urged. She reeled frantically, giggling and giddy as a young girl flying her first kite.
“Keep your tip up!” I advised. But Agnes was magnificent. She handled the strike and played the fish like an expert, steering him clear of the rock’s edge.
“Be ready, he’ll make a dash for deeper water,” I instructed, but she was attentive to the great fish’s every fleeing maneuver.
Her nimbleness of foot as she waded lightly, dishevelled copper hair flying in the wind, the wiry strength of her feminine form—perfection. I and the fish were doomed—the fish besieged and me bewitched.
“Be careful, don’t let him off,” she begged of me as she hauled the trout into shallow water.
I reached down and grabbed him up by his bulging girth, fresh and dripping with cold water . . . then I whacked his head hard against a rock. His silvery body trembled for a moment and his mouth opened, then closed, struggling in vain to hold the life within himself, but it escaped with a dramatic gasp and the great fish fell limp.
“Oh, Mack,” she shuddered, “did you have to do that?”
Quick and painless my dear,” I replied. “He’s quite the prize; let him go and someone else will land him.”
“Now he is yours forever. You want him for the wall or the pan?”
Her apprehensive frown gave way to a sheepish smile. “For the pan,” she said. “Let’s eat him, I’m famished.”
I wrapped a couple of large potatoes in foil and tossed them into a campfire. They were heavy and thudded when they landed in the embers—sparks spitting and rising on gray smoke. I fried the fillets and several slices of thick toast in butter, garnished the fish with squeezed lemon and black pepper, and served with a mix of sweet pickles. We ate and laughed. We raised paper cups filled with wine, toasting the day, the fish, us—promises, hope.
Daylight seemed to take hours to die, eventually surrendering itself to that quiet time of limbo—after the noisome retreat of the songbirds and when the color drowns into shadows that rise up to become things of the imagination. The blustery wind of earlier abandoned itself against the twilight. Solitude drifted in as from some faraway, mystical place, and the cool fingers of evening began to massage away the wrinkles of the day.
Agnes smiled so lovely in the firelight, her straight white teeth opening and closing between full lips and curved mouth. She was as attractive as I had ever seen her.
There was a special mood in the air. We got lost in the silvery clouds drifting in front of the full moon and in recollections of a girl with red hair blowing kisses, a school boy, a prom dance, a parking spot. So much time had passed between us. So many memories, interwoven in a bond, though stale from the familiarity of too much time—still strong, yet true. This night would end with more than resurrections of memories past, but the promise of a new one—depending upon what we desired—what either was willing to surrender for it—what we got.
Conversation eventually ebbed and we succumbed to the setting. We held each other, gazing at the lake in its nighttime sheen, listening as it echoed the music of crickets and frogs weeping for summer days—and love, and us. Then fell asleep by the fire, waking hours later in the dank sweetness of the cold night. I held her hand as we retreated to the warmth of the cabin.
You tired?” I asked.
“Not really.”
“How about a dance? I inquired as I blew the dust from a Nina Simone LP sleeve.
As the needle touched vinyl, cracking and popping, a tinkling piano began to play, growing coarser, followed by a husky tenor voice:
Just say that I need him as roses need the rain . . . And tell him that without him my dreams are all in vain
. . . Just say I loved him, loved him . . .
The music and the mood of the room focused and held in Agnes’ lovely eyes, staring into the orange blaze of the fire. “Don’t play that,” she requested in a weakened tone.
“Why?”
“Just don’t.”
“But it was our . . .”
“Don’t.”
“What’s wrong?” I questioned reluctantly, knowing this would, at last, be the gathering place of all of the sleepless nights, tears. A place to erase that which has happened, forget the past, start anew—or not. Our relationship had been cluttered with odds and ends—dreaded these, regretted thats, he said, she said, he did, she didn’t, and vice versa. Whatever. Even if we could pick up the pieces, would they still fit?
“I know,” she stated, vulnerably. “I know about her.” Her face looked bloodless.
I said nothing, looking out the big window into the darkness.
“Didn’t you think I would?” she continued, looking at me with pained eyes.
“What do you want me to say?” I replied carefully.
The ugliest scene followed. Glasses shattered against the stone fireplace and wine spilled on the white bear rug as parts of my past, parts I thought I had discretely concealed, drifted into the argument like remnants of a nightmare. I don’t know what I’d expected; this I guess.
She began to cry, not aloud, although outwardly the pain was growing more absolute. Then torrents, followed by hysteria. It was rare to see Agnes so emotional. She was a mess.
I felt for her—pity, yes, but also a visceral pang as though a dire part of my being was fighting along with her, as ally. What had seemed complicated, impossible . . . now so simple. From a primordial standpoint Agnes was the essence of my life: all I desired and had ever wanted, moreover, what I would always need. She was nature, Eden’s Eve, flesh of my flesh. Lara was the metaphorical city—glitz and glamour—a gorgeous fast car, temporary and impractical.
The conviction I had been searching for took hold of me as the strained silence between us grew unbearable.
“I’ve been such a fool,” I exhaled.
The two of us were lost in failure, gazing into opposing emptiness, searching for the words to say, residing in the time it takes for the transfer of compassion or cruelty.
“I love you. I do.” I pronounced tenderly.
“How can you say that to me? How can you . . .?” she shuddered. “You are a fool.”
“A fool can still care . . . A fool can change.” I stood quickly, grabbing her by her flannel shirt, spinning her ’round and clutching her tightly. I could feel her quickened heartbeat.
“Tell me you don’t still have feelings for me,” I demanded, and I kissed her hard. “It’s not too late . . . Tell me you still love me.”
She kissed me, speaking against my lips. “I’ll never love anyone but you.” Her mascara melted into black dripping tears running down her face as Nina Simone sang The Desperate Ones. Her breast heaved beneath the buckskin vest, then her body weakened, her head tilted upward, and for the first time in years I saw true want in her eyes.
And the night soaked up the music, the sorrow, the restless longing. It’s blackness grew heavy, then gave birth to a new day.
I laid awake, watching as the objects within the room defined themselves against the orange light of dawn bleeding in from the window, the clothes draped over chairs, antlers on the wall, rifle in the corner. Mostly I watched Agnes sleeping.
Then, quietly I slipped away. As not to wake her, I brought along with me what I needed to get the day started. She’d be down soon enough.
I’d had some difficulty in the explaining, to the complete satisfaction of Agnes, the reasons why and how I could have ever betrayed her. I’ll not do her the injustice to insinuate her complete consolation. She’s human after all. Soon, we’d pack it in and head back to civilization, and careers, and routine—and Lara, to one regard or another.
Nevertheless, the morning was calm and serene. The oil-slick surface of the lake smiled back to the deep blue of the sky. Winter was finally over for good, its dreams fashioned for a misconceived summer now blurred. April had at long last expelled February’s icy winds and summoned spring’s warmth and promises for both man and nature in golden rays of sunlight.
I built a fire, started coffee, then went down to the bank for a shave.
I smiled as I soaked it in.
It wasn’t long before I heard Agnes’ footsteps coming up behind me.
“Good morning sweet,” I announced as I scraped the razor across my face. She had no reply.
She stretched her arms round me, one to either side. I could feel her warm breath on the back of my neck. Her mouth moved toward mine and rested on my cleanly shaven cheek, then she gently trailed her hand across my shoulder, receding with a furtive touch. I leaned down to splash the cream from my face. Like the fresh morning air, the water was chilly and invigorating, stinging my face and startling my senses.
As I opened my eyes, I felt a dull thunk on the side of my head; it made a crunching sound and all begin to go numb. I stumbled to my knees—disoriented, confused, blurred with pain. I reached up with a leaden arm. What I felt was wet and warm, not at all like the cool sensation slivering down my neckline. When I looked at my palm it was coated in blood. I struggled to turn toward Agnes. The large scarlet-stained rock she held loosely slipped from her dainty hand. I collapsed backward into the water, sinking beneath its surface. Swirls of deep red clouded my view. But I could still see her standing there—eyes shut tightly, gold drifts of light across their lids, warmth glistening on her pretty mouth. No promises, only truth—I was hers forever.