Quabbin - 16. Chapter 16

Dad was still up when Carrie dropped me off at the house. He and I nodded at each other, then I checked my mail, played with the computer for a couple minutes, took a fast shower, and tried to fall asleep. Then I pulled on my jeans, took my guitar down to the back porch, and played as quietly as I could, without singing.

Pretty soon, Dad went to bed, and the house was almost as dark behind me as the backyard was black. I didn’t need to see the strings. I just played, my fingers being, maybe, the one part of me that didn’t hurt.

The songs drifted into each other. When I hit a wrong note, I’d go back, then go on. I thought about Dane, and what was I going to do about him. What I wanted to do. What could possibly make sense.

I probably could’ve played there, happily, all night. But I finally put down the guitar and lay back to take a break.

Dad woke me when he knew I just had enough time to get to work. “Just to make sure,” he said. “I thought you might have the day off.”

“No. Thanks. God, what time is it?” And I was in my car.

Dumb things kept happening all day Wednesday. Rumors, and fights, and everyone in the Mill being tense. No one wanted to lose their job, and everyone was sure that could happen. And no one wanted to risk siding with Grenon, but everyone admitted how much he did for the company. And they all acknowledged that the only other person who could do the job as well was Kohler.

“What if Bill gets fired?” I asked Cameron. He just looked at me strangely.

“Bill?” he said.

“Yeah. What if he gets...”

“Since when are you calling him ‘Bill?’ ” he poked.

“Sorry,” I had to say. “Too much hanging around Carrie.” Then I felt guilty for all the things I wasn’t telling Cameron that Carrie had told me. “But what if Grenon does get fired?” I pushed on. “What happens next?”

“They wouldn’t promote me -- I can tell you that,” Cameron said, laughing. Though he didn’t seem very concerned

“But say Kohler and Grenon both had both died somehow? Say they were both suddenly gone. Who’d run everything?”

Cameron thought for a moment, then shrugged. “Guess they’d have to bring in someone from outside,” he said. “That would make sense.”

“Then why’s that so hard now?”

Cameron knew even less about that. He didn’t seem to know any more than Carrie, which was scary. But I was beginning to suspect that business wasn’t really that hard. Until you added egos.

And egos were something I knew a little about. Under all that had been going on at the Mill, there was something else I’d kept focused on, something just a bit more personal. For eleven days, I’d kept count: Dane had left on a Sunday morning. He was due back late Sunday night.

Not that I’d go charging to him, first thing Monday morning. But I wouldn’t wait to bump into him, either. I’d already made kind of a plan. Wednesday -- Thursday at latest -- I’d go to his office. We hadn’t seen each other in over two years. I hadn’t even sneaked a look -- hung around the house he was sharing with Craig, or the real estate office he owned. I hadn’t even looked at their wedding picture.

Dad had the paper at home, and Cameron had brought it to work. He said Dane looked great, so I knew he was lying, ‘cause Dane almost never looked less than great. Cameron joked that he’d cut out Craig’s picture, so I could throw darts at it. But I didn’t need to do that.

The last time I saw Dane was the night before I left to London. I’d stayed sober for a couple of reasons. One, I didn’t want to be sick on the plane. More, I want to clearly say goodbye.

“You’re really doing this?” he’d asked. Things were never so tense between us that we couldn’t go out for coffee. That’s why I knew he wouldn’t call the cops when I walked into his office. Besides, I had a real wedding present to give him, something he could keep. If I could just figure out what that could be.

“Yep,” I’d said. “I’m going.” And I didn’t even offer him a second ticket, not that I’d been dumb enough to buy one. I’d sold almost everything valuable I had to get my own, and to load almost three grand on my credit card -- for emergencies. I wasn’t a complete idiot, but all Dane needed to know about was the jeans and T-shirt.

“What if it doesn’t work?” he’d asked. “You’re strong enough to go back to school -- as long as you stay off your bike.” He’d smiled there. I won’t forget that. “And you could easily make up the year.”

Not in pre-med, I’d wanted to say. It’s not as easy as business. But that was the wrong time to be insulting.

“What can’t work out?” I’d asked instead. “What could be wrong with traveling? I’ve never been further than Tulane.”

I had him there, especially ‘cause I knew it was something he’d never do. Just as he and Craig would never take off even a whole month to stay in Italy. This was the first time either of them had been out of the States, and I’ll bet that was Dane’s idea. Part of mine, too. All those postcards.

I never sent him letters, not in the whole two years. I was saving the stories for my journal, and I had my timing all worked out: I’d come back just as Dane finished school. I already knew he was doing it in three years and had enough spies to tell me if his plans suddenly changed -- if he suddenly broke up with Craig. Then, I’d instantly reappear, Jim, the world-traveler. Who could resist?

Instead, I sent him postcards, and never the usual tourist stuff. I’d try and find old cards at bazaars and flea markets, things people had already sent. I’d stick ‘em in an envelope, just to let Dane know where I was. One at a time, or a batch when I found them, or when I couldn’t get to a post office.

“Are you’re stalking him?” my sister Ann asked, once, when I called.

“I don’t know. Do you see him? Does he want me to stop?”

“You’d really have to ask Carol,” Ann said. “I never see Dane anymore.”

But Carol didn’t know, and there was no easy way Dane could’ve written me anyhow. I moved around too much, never knowing where I’d go next or how long I’d be staying. I tried to call someone in my family each week, to stay in touch. But I never would’ve called Dane.

Why? Partly ‘cause I needed to keep sending those cards. I needed Dane to be sharing my trip. If that connection was broken, then, when I came back, I would’ve just been gone. This way, we were always friends.

So I left on good terms, and I kept the card-sending steady, and until I played that wedding present trick on him, we probably were still friends. In fact, the last thing he’d said to me was, “I’m not gonna forget you, Jim,” and he probably meant it as something nice. But it was a knife. He was living with another guy, I’d just dropped Dane back at their house, and he was about to go in and sleep with Craig. But he “wasn’t gonna forget me.”

“It’s not the way you make it sound,” Carol told me, when I repeated what Dane had said. Carol was driving me to the airport. “He loves you the way I love you. That’s all.”

“You don’t want to sleep with me,” I joked, and Carol just stroked my thigh. She could get away with that. “Well, I don’t want to sleep with you,” I retreated.

As she grinned, I thought about Dane. Could be I had been lying to myself, big time. Maybe Dane was completely over me, though I didn’t feel the same way. Still, I was set to wait him out.

As everyone was waiting at the Mill. Whatever Eileen had tried to fix at her house Tuesday night hadn’t worked. Bill was in his office Wednesday, and she was in hers. They were doing business ‘cause they had to, ‘specially since the Mill had been closed for almost a week. But in between, Carrie told me, everyone was on the phones with their lawyers.

“It’s gotten worse,” Carrie said at dinner. We were at a Thai place she liked in Northampton. She hadn’t gone in to work, but hadn’t been able to get away from it all day. “Bill did something he didn’t expect to -- because he doesn’t think these kinds of things out. He told the world we were ready for a take-over. Now he and his group are scrambling as hard as we are.”

“Who’s interested?” I tried to ask casually, taking more noodles.

“Oh… everyone.” She looked even less happy than she had the night before, and any talk of her father had been wiped out by business. “Sears is nosing around. And Target. And Wall-Mart.”

“Why?”

“We’re a name. We have a brand. We can bring in business.”

“Is that bad?” I asked.

“Well, would you want to be owned by Target?”

Again, I didn’t know what that meant. If some huge company bought the Mill, would things get better? Or worse? Or stay the same? And for who? Did it really matter whose name was on the checks if you were still doing the same job? I gently asked Carrie all these questions, but she didn’t have the answers. And they were the same questions that were bothering her and her family.

“We’ve spoken with people in companies that’ve been bought,” she told me. “Land’s End is closest to us, but they’re bigger, and people there can’t really talk honestly -- ‘cause they don’t know who it’ll get back to. They give you the good news, but they’re businessmen and know not to hurt themselves. Still, it doesn’t look like it’s hurt their clothes -- they’re still our competition. Though -- like with Levi’s -- they were overextended, and, in a way, Sears bailed them out.”

One thing I did know was that the Mill didn’t need to be saved financially. Except from the people trying to run it.

“I need a break from all this,” Carrie suddenly said, laughing. “So does Mom. We just want to go somewhere quietly and talk about Dad.”

“Where’s Bob?” I asked.

“Home.” She laughed again. “Poor Bob. He doesn’t even have an apartment, to hide out.”

“How’s he doing?”

“OK… I guess. I mean, it’s not like I talk to him a lot. He’s still practically a high school kid. What is there to say?”

Bob had almost a year more of college than I did, but I didn’t want to point that out.

“Grenon just doesn’t get it,” Carrie went on. “Even now, he still thinks he can get the stock -- when people are almost doubling the bids of his investors.”

“Why?” I asked. “What makes it so valuable?”

“They want it for control!” she said, a bit short. “I told you -- business is about control. Everything’s about control. And even though we own as much stock as we do -- even though we have the control -- people can buy it. They can split us up and buy it.

Then she explained something I hadn’t known: It was true that Carrie’s family had fifty-five percent of the stock, but not the way I expected. She, Bob, Eileen, and Drew each owned ten percent. But Kohler’s brother, sister, and parents had another five percent each.

“They got a mess of money,” Carrie told me, “when the company went public. Plus, they got this stock. The deal was that Mom and Dad would buy it from them, whenever they wanted to sell – if that ever happened. But that’s the stock Grenon’s investors were going after. They figured if they offered so much more than it was worth, even being family wouldn’t matter.”

“That’s dumb.”

Carrie just looked at me. “Oh, come on. If someone offered you five million bucks for your dad’s house, how fast would you have him out of it?”

It wasn’t a fair comparison, but I got the point.

“Even Mom had to admit that there’s a point where you can’t turn the money down.”

“I’d kill people first.”

“It’s hard to kill your own grandparents.”

“But what if they’re destroying your life?” I asked. “The life they know you want?”

“That’s the whole thing,” Carrie said. “That’s what Mom and I talked about half the afternoon on the phone. That’s why I can’t see her tonight -- we’d just go on and on… But Mom loves her job. OK, Dad gave it to her, and it’s not like she grew up wanting to design clothes. But she’s done it for twenty years now, and she knows it’ll be all different without Dad. So part of her thinks that maybe it is just time to walk away. Let Bill -- or whoever wants it -- have the Mill and its problems. Mom can start another life -- we all can. Hell, Bob and I are just starting. The problem is that Mom doesn’t want to decide right now -- and either do I. We haven’t even started getting over Dad. That, alone, is gonna to take the summer.”

Longer than that, I thought. But I didn’t need to tell Carrie that. And there was very little else I could tell Carrie right then, so I just listened, through dinner and a long while afterward. She’d make a point, then, like she said about her mother, she’d circle it, and go back and make the point again. But it never got any clearer.

When we finished dinner, we wandered from the restaurant, walking around town, then finally ending up at her apartment, where we finished a bottle of wine. Near midnight, I begged off. She’d had more to drink than I had, so was ready to sleep anyhow. After I left, I thought about running the Smith track, but even my legs were still too sore. I started for my car, happy at least that Dad was already in bed, but I was too restless to go home. If there’d been a late movie, I would’ve gone to that, but I’d missed the last shows at both Pleasant Street and the Academy. I thought about surprising Kevin, but nothing could happen there tonight. I even thought about driving to Hartford. Ann and the boys would be asleep, but Mike stayed up till two. We could talk and play cribbage. Instead, I sat on the Academy of Music steps, licking an ice cream cone, and wondering if kids passing by would drop coins at my feet. If I’d had my guitar, I could’ve picked up a buck-or-two. I once made nearly twenty-five, on a Saturday night on a bet. I’d lost a bet, so that’s why I was playing.

When I finally started towards Amherst, I just kept going. I wasn’t driving just to drive; I knew where I was headed, and it wasn’t the driving part that scared me -- I wasn’t suddenly going to steer off the road and wreck into a tree. I safely reached the reservoir and parked where I usually did, then headed into the forest. That didn’t bother me, either. It was the water I worried about. Not that I couldn’t swim, and swim well. I’d have a hell of a time trying to drown myself in anything that wasn’t moving fast, and the reservoir was largely a flat lake. Though I knew it would be cold, maybe even colder than the river. I supposed I could just jump in and swim towards the islands in the middle, then never make it. Nah, I’d probably make it to the islands, come back, and swim out again, warming all the way. Unless, it was really cold -- I couldn’t figure out that. But I wasn’t anywhere near the water, so I didn’t have to try.

Instead, I thought about other ways to kill myself, trying to figure out why the place was suddenly scaring me. Drugs were an easy out, but I wouldn’t have to do that at Quabbin, so that wasn’t the threat. I could slit my wrists if I carried a knife, but the sharpest thing in my trunk was an old screwdriver, and -- again -- that had nothing to do with the reservoir. Ditto sucking CO2 from my car exhaust, and, first, I’d have to sneak into somebody’s yard and steal a hose. I was having fun, working out all the ways I’d never kill myself, getting steadily calmer as I hiked along, when I thought about my belt.

I wore jeans almost all the time, with a heavy leather belt. I thought I could loop it around my neck, climb a tree, tie the belt to a solid branch, and push off. I knew I wouldn’t break my neck -- the fall would be too short -- but I’d slowly choke. Except I could probably pull myself up and do fifty chins before I let anything serious happen.

I stopped walking. It was pretty dark, but you don’t have to see to take off your belt. Mine had a heavy buckle, solid cast, so it would easily hold the loop without giving. The problem was finding a tree in the darkness, one I could easily climb, that might have a strong limb fifteen feet up. I touched the nearest tree. It was thick enough to have big branches above and other branches low enough for me to grab. But could I find one that I could tie the free end of my belt around, then hope that friction would support my weight? And could I work far enough out from the trunk, keeping my balance while I somehow tied my wrists behind me, so I couldn’t do those life-saving gymnastics? No, I couldn’t. It was just too stupid, and I was glad. So I left my belt where it belonged, and started walking again to the water.

It was cold when I reached it, as I expected. Even breaking the surface on the shallow edge where it was probably warmest, let me imagine how cold it could be twenty or thirty feet down. And how far down could I get before I wouldn’t have enough air to come back up? The lake bottom was also predictably muddy. I couldn’t just dive off, like at a pool, and suddenly be twenty feet down and already winded. I’d have to slog through the mud before I could even swim, then surface dive, and force myself down.

OK, Jim, let’s do this, I thought. And I actually pulled off my shirt before I turned and started walking away. It was Ted on the balcony. Ron on the bridge. Just a guy in a place he knew he shouldn’t be. I didn’t want to kill myself. I had no reason ever to do that. But it didn’t mean I was any less scared to be out there, at the reservoir, alone, at night.

I had plenty of time to think as I worked back to my car. Why had I risked that, even as a joke? What was I scared of to begin with? Well, there were two big things, in the past, but what would be even one small one, now, for not wanting to go on with my life?

Because then I wouldn’t have to live without Dane.

Because then I wouldn’t have to live without Dane.

Because then I...

Damn. I got myself there. Got myself big time. And the only thing that made me the least bit happy after working that out was that I didn’t turn right around and go into the water.