Sweet Water Read online

  I nodded.

  “That’s very industrious of you. You must have a lot of time on your hands.”

  “I guess I do,” I said, drawing a deep breath. “Are you sure you don’t need anything from town?”

  “No, I’m just fine. I’ve got some time on my hands myself.”

  “Really? Well, I was wondering if you might want to come over and visit one of these days. I’d love to repay you for—”

  “You don’t need to repay me.”

  “I didn’t mean that. What I meant was that I’d like to have you over—if you’d like to come.”

  “Oh.” She seemed unsettled. “That’s very kind of you, Cassandra, but I don’t think so. No, I don’t think so,” she repeated, shaking her head.

  When I left the house I felt like I was leaving worlds untouched. There was a weight of unsaid words between us. As I got in my car and drove away, I had the peculiar sense of being trapped in someone else’s story, a story I didn’t understand and could participate in only as a bystander, a passerby.

  So he left her the house and he left her the land and he knew exactly what he was doing. He hid that box and didn’t say a word about it for twenty-four years, not a word to anyone. He knew that if he said anything all of it would come out: that he’d been messing around with Bryce all that time, that while the men he employed were toiling away in the mill he was meeting their wives for car rides, for picnics, for romance in his office with the blinds shut. They would not have been pleased to hear it. But he knew that there’s not much you can do to punish a dead man, so he hid the box and waited.

  And now she’s living down there on that land that used to be mine. I raised three children in the rooms I’ve heard she fills with junk from garage sales, I sliced and pared and baked in the room she covers with newspaper and knickknacks. Ellen was conceived and born in the bed Cassandra calls her own. She was born crying a tinny cry, six pounds two ounces, red and wrinkled and dark-haired like an Oriental. There were complications, and we had to rush to the hospital. The bloodstains on the mattress never came out. I nursed her and bathed her and changed her in that bedroom with the drafty windows on two sides and the soft pine floors.

  Nobody’s lived in that house for years, and with good reason. It always had too many windows, and now half of them are broken, screens rusted and torn. The floor creaks, the plumbing drips. I guess she thinks it’s romantic, I don’t know. Young people think they want to hold on to the past, but the past they’re holding on to is nothing like the life we lived. The house was always needing work, and the land was wild. In winter the chill came in through the windows and under the doors, and the children got sick. The yard was mud when it wasn’t ice, and I worried that the gas stove in the kitchen would kill us all in our sleep, by fumes or explosion.

  I have no romantic notions of the past. If I could have lived then the way I do now, I’d have done it in a minute. It wasn’t the past to us, it was just the best life we knew how to make.

  But now she comes down here digging in the past like it holds some kind of answer, playing the part he gambled she’d take. She’s there by herself in the house on the hill, exploring the attic and the cellar, shoveling up the earth to plant flowers, searching under the porch for where her dog took her shoe, replacing rotten floorboards.

  In her own sweet time she’s getting closer and closer. In her own sweet time she’s going to find it.

  The bar was smoky and hot and it was only nine-thirty, but I was already off duty. I sat in a back booth with a drawing pad, drinking tequila and smoking a cigarette. I hadn’t smoked since I was a junior in college, and then it was more of a statement than a need. But tonight my mouth was watering for a cigarette—something I’d never imagined possible—and I bummed one from Patsy, another waitress, and then just one more. I kept telling myself to stop, but almost without realizing it I’d be lighting up again.

  It was a quiet night, unusual for a Friday. The band hadn’t started playing yet, so people were talking in quiet groups or drinking alone at the bar. I was sketching ideas for the large clay pieces, three in all. Since coming up with the project I’d been moving quickly, working late into the night, rising early to watch the light on the field, trying to catch where the shade fell and when. I wanted to know how shadows would fall on faces and hands when I positioned the pieces. Now I was working on a reclining female form resting on an elbow. I sketched alternatives for hands: tree roots, clocks, vines.

  Liz and Ryan were out of town for the weekend, and Cal, the new assistant manager, was in charge. Until they left together, I hadn’t even realized something was going on between them; they seemed to trade the same easy banter with each other as with everyone else. Ryan told me they were going camping at Great Smoky National Park, and I still didn’t get it. “You mean together?” I said finally, and he laughed: “I promise we’ll keep one foot on the floor.”

  Cal told the staff that a few of us could quit early, and I jumped at the chance. I’d been preoccupied all evening, thinking about my project and pushing down a now familiar and general panic at having set myself adrift in foreign waters. So I was getting slowly drunk and working my way through Patsy’s Salems, holding a pencil and a cigarette in one hand like chopsticks and drawing the other: long fingers with scalloped folds of flesh over the knuckles, uneven nails.

  The music, when it erupted from the stage in front, startled me. I looked up. The band was called Tidewater; they played here a lot, pretty standard Southern country rock. The four boys in the band were local, and they harmonized with the careful facility of self-taught novices. I tried to return to my sketchbook, but the music was distracting, and I found myself tapping my feet under the table to an acoustic-guitar and drum version of “Blue Suede Shoes.” I sat up straight, stretched, and flipped the notebook shut, shoving the pencil through the holes of the wire binder at the top. I propped the notebook against the wall and went over to the bar, sliding onto the vinyl-covered seat of a tall wooden stool.

  “How about another tequila, Cal? And a pack of cigarettes.”

  “I thought you didn’t smoke.”

  “I don’t.”

  He tossed me a pack of Winstons and poured a generous jigger of gold liquid into a whiskey glass. “You want a lime?”

  “Sure.”

  He put four wedges of lime on a plate and got out a shaker of salt. I poured some into the web between my left thumb and forefinger, licked it, tossed back the drink, and sucked on a lime. The tequila sat in my stomach like a burning coal and then sizzled up to my head. The band was playing “Blue Moon.”

  “Does every band that comes through here think they’re obligated to play that song?”

  “It’s in the contract,” he said.

  I slid my glass across the bar. “I think I’ll have another one.”

  “I think you’ve had enough.” He was counting change in the cash register.

  “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  “Excuse me, are you my father?”

  “No, I’m your boss.”

  “Cal, I’m off duty.”

  He shut the drawer with a click. “I just don’t want you getting into any trouble. You sit there and cool your heels a little while.”

  “I want to dance.”

  “So dance.”

  “I don’t know anybody but you, Cal.”

  “I’m working. Just ask somebody Somebody single, okay? No rings.” He put a glass of ice water in front of me and wiggled his ringless fingers.

  I sighed. A hand appeared on the bar. “I’m single,” said a low, soft voice. “Want to dance?”

  I stared at the hand for a moment. It was wide but thin, with veins visible through the skin like a raised map. The index finger was callused. I looked up the bare, tan arm to the rolled sleeve of a work shirt, and then into eyes that were pale chips of blue.

  He seemed about my age, maybe younger. His fair hair was short and wavy, and he had sandy stubble on his sunburned chin. These
were the first things I noticed.

  “Sure,” I said.

  I slid off the stool, and we threaded our way to the dance floor through the clusters of people sitting around it. I knew he was watching me walk, but the alcohol felt good inside me and I didn’t care. When we reached the front he touched my waist, and I turned to face him. He pulled me toward him, his hand on the small of my back, and my hand rose automatically to his shoulder. He held his other hand out for me to clasp, and then we were dancing.

  Our closeness made me feel drunker than I was. He led easily, his steps small and graceful. He was about four inches taller than me; my breasts grazed his ribs, and I could feel his thighs through his jeans. As I looked into his face I imagined drawing the simple curves and clean lines of his nose and brow and jaw. It was a strong face, but with something delicate about it, something refined, though it was clear this was a part of himself he tried to keep under wraps.

  The song was still “Blue Moon,” but now that I was dancing with my body against someone else’s, someone I wanted to dance with a little while longer, I didn’t want it to end. The singer was holding the microphone close, slurring the words. My partner put his mouth to my ear and said, “I’ve been watching you over there, sitting all alone, getting drunk by yourself.”

  “I’m not drunk.”

  He took his hand off my back and I lost my balance, staggering a little. “You’re not?”

  “That wasn’t fair.”

  “I don’t care if you’re drunk,” he said. “I like your voice this way. Maybe it’s always this way. I hope so.”

  I leaned my head on his shoulder, and he drew me closer. He ran his hand up my side. For the first time in a long time I felt the warmth of desire, a low, dull heat moving through my veins. I touched his stomach through his shirt, and he stroked my waist with one finger, his lips in my hair.

  The song ended, and I pulled away uncertainly. He steadied me with his hand on my arm. The band began a fast song, and we stood still for a moment in the motion around us.

  “Let’s get some air,” he said, and I told him to wait while I got the cigarettes I’d left at the bar.

  Cal looked over at him and said to me in a quiet voice, “You know what you’re doing?”

  “I can handle myself, boss,” I said, smiling.

  I made my way back across the floor, and we went outside to sit on the wide wooden steps extending from the front porch. He sat on the step above me, leaning back against the rail.

  I took out a cigarette. He searched his pockets for a lighter, but I was faster with a match.

  “What do you need me for?” he said.

  I blew smoke out into the cool dark air. The place was lit haphazardly by a string of bulbs on the roof. I could see the outline of the first row of cars in the parking lot. I laughed, bold and drunk. “I don’t know yet.”

  We sat in silence for a while. People trickled in and out of the bar, and we overheard bits of conversation: “She didn’t look half bad from the back.” “The sitter’s going to have a fit.” “Why didn’t you tell me you could see right through this dress?” The occasional car coming or going crunched on the gravel in a sweep of headlights.

  “Slow night,” he said. “Is it always like this?”

  “What makes you think I’d know?”

  “You work here, don’t you?”

  I looked at him curiously. “How do you know that?”

  “The way you were talking to the bartender—unless he’s your boyfriend or something.”

  A car screeched out of the parking lot, blaring its horn. Someone swore loudly.

  “So you’re not from around here,” I said.

  “Grew up here. I’m just back for a visit.”

  “Why?”

  “See some friends. See if things are still the same.”

  “Are they?”

  “Yeah. But you’re here—that’s different.”

  “You know everybody?”

  “Used to.”

  I stubbed out my cigarette on my step. My mouth felt dry and sooty. “I want another drink.”

  “I’ve got some tequila at my place.”

  “I can get it here for free.”

  “You don’t want to go back in there,” he said.

  I leaned back lazily, looking up at him. “Why not? And anyway, why should I go with you?”

  “Why shouldn’t you?”

  I considered. “I’m sure there are about a million reasons, but I can’t think of any of them right now.”

  “Sweetwater isn’t New York, you know.”

  This sounded logical, though I couldn’t remember telling him where I was from. “You don’t even know my name.”

  “Cassie. I heard the bartender say it.”

  “Well, now that that’s taken care of …”

  “Mine’s Bernie.”

  He got up and pulled me up gently with him, moving down onto my step and touching me under the chin. I could feel his breath on my eyelashes. I tilted my head, and he kissed my upper lip softly, like a feather stroke, and then my lower one. I pressed him to me, my fingers in his belt loops, and kissed him back, running my tongue over his teeth.

  We took his jeep, leaving my old station wagon in the parking lot. The jeep was black with red seats. Cassettes were lined up under the dashboard and scattered all over the floor: Lyle Lovett, Dwight Yoakum, k.d. lang, and some others I’d never heard of. When he turned on the ignition, Patsy Cline was singing “Crazy.”

  We drove through the darkness over winding wooded roads. The high beams made it look as if the trees were parting to let us pass. I asked him if he minded if I smoked.

  “Not if I can watch.”

  “You’d better watch where you’re going,” I said. I smiled and lit a cigarette and looked out the windshield at the road coming up to meet us. He was driving slowly; cars skittered past us like brightly colored beetles.

  His “place” was a room in a one-story motel on the other side of town. A red-and-green blinking neon sign advertised MOUNTAIN VIEW INN—VACANCY; several of the letters were burned out. He pulled up in front of his room and asked me to wait in the jeep for a moment, then hopped out and came around to open my door.

  I told him he was a gentleman, and he said he just wanted another excuse to touch my hand. I slid down beside him, and we stood against the open door of the jeep. He kissed my jawbone and stroked my neck, combing his fingers through my hair, and I pushed my knee between his legs, parting them. We managed to get to his door, and he fumbled for the key while I ran my hand down the hard ridge of his spine, and then the door was open and shut behind us and we were inside the darkness, my back against the wall. He tugged on the soft cotton of my shirt, pulling it up and placing his hand on my belly. I unbuttoned his shirt slowly, starting from the top. Out of the corner of my eye I could see red and green letters flashing on the opposite wall, above the bed, as he crouched down and gathered me in.

  The next afternoon I went to work in a red silk shirt tucked into faded jeans tucked into cowboy boots I’d bought at a yard sale. I had made a ritual of getting dressed, laying clothes out on the bed, then taking a bath and wrapping myself in a towel to paint my toenails. Standing in my bra in front of the bathroom mirror, I anointed the hollow of my neck, my temples, the insides of my elbows and thighs with French perfume I’d found still packed in a box from New York. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d lavished such attention on my body. I slipped on a peach camisole trimmed with antique lace and rummaged through my makeup bag until I found a lipstick to match my shirt. When I left the house I felt invincible.

  Cal whistled when I walked into the Blue Moon. “Whoo-ee, it’s somebody’s lucky night.”

  “I hear you’ve been up to no good,” said Liz. She was sitting at the bar with a Perrier, reading the paper.

  “You’re back,” I said brightly. “How was it?”

  “It was scenic. I got restless.”

  “How’s Ryan?”

  “He got poiso
n ivy. Turns out that rugged outdoorsy shtick that reeled me in is just an act.”

  I smiled and started taking chairs down from the tables.

  “But at least you had a good time,” Liz said.

  “Cal’s got a big mouth.”

  “I didn’t hear it from Cal. I heard it from your cousin.”

  I slammed down the chair I was holding. “Alice has no business—”

  Liz let out a laugh, throaty and deep. “Look, I already know what happened, so you can stop playing dumb. It’s no big deal—you’re not even technically related to him, right? Of course, it’s still a little weird. I mean, some people might think it’s weird. I don’t give a damn.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  She gave me an incredulous look. “Come on.”

  “What are you saying, Liz?” I asked in a small, flat voice.

  Her eyes dropped to the paper. “Oh, Jesus Christ. You don’t know, do you? That little bastard.”

  Fragments of conversation and observation from the night before flashed through my head: the cadence of his voice, the lines of his face, familiar. “I grew up around here, but I only come back to visit.” He said he was a musician. He said I reminded him of someone he knew a long time ago.

  “He said his name was Bernie.”

  “It is Well, that’s what the band calls him. But his real name is Troy. Troy Burns.”

  I felt sick. I couldn’t think straight. The dull hangover I’d woken up with in his bed that morning was burrowing its way through the aspirin I’d cloaked it in. “When did you see him?”

  “About an hour ago, maybe less. He said he’d be back this evening.”

  “I have to go.”

  Liz nodded reluctantly. “It’s going to be busy tonight, but I guess I can’t blame you. I’ll call Patsy, see what she’s doing.”

  I looked over at Cal, who was wiping down the bar. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Honest to God, Cassie, I didn’t know who he was. You know I started working here just before you did. I’d never seen him before in my life.”

  “I’ve been watching you,” he had said, and later, “I believe we’ve got a lot more in common than you think.”