Justin Cronin - The Summer Guest

Hal tipped back in his chair and looked past me through the windows to the lake, where the mist was lifting in loose swirls the color of ice. Lucy came out of the kitchen, brushing her hands on her red apron, and when Hal saw her, he caught her eye and smiled, raising a single finger from the edge of his cup. Somehow, his eyes looked even more tired when he did this. When people die it is sometimes said to be a blessing, and in Hal’s face I saw what this meant. Lucy ducked back through the swinging doors-a sudden wash of kitchen noise, of pots and pans and spattering grease, all of it making me hungry-and Hal turned back to me. He took one last sip of his coffee and fit the empty cup back into its saucer.

“Well. Time to get the kid. If you can believe it, she slept through all of that last night. Now she wants to know why she can’t watch Bert and Ernie. I’ve promised a boat ride instead.” He gave one last look out the window and rose to go. “At least we’ll have a good day for this, anyway,” he said.

After Hal had left, I sat by the window a little longer-the day was shaping up to be a hot one-then got some more coffee and a muffin and took it outside into the damp morning air to get things under way. While Hal and I were talking, one of the moose-canoe parties had come in and sat down to breakfast, a couple with their teenage son (Lucy had shown them to a table, telling them in a voice loud enough for me to hear to take their time, the pancakes were especially good as long as you were real hungry, their guide would be along when they were done), and as I exited the lodge I saw two more drifting in my direction from the boat launch: a man about my age with a thin blond woman, pretty enough for me to pay attention. Her hair was still wet from the shower, and her face had the scrubbed look of someone in a soap commercial. The pair of them were dressed head-to-toe in high-tech outdoorsy synthetics, like a pair of models in a catalog, and they were looking around at the place with big smiles on their faces, all keyed up for a hearty meal and a long float down the river. I had them pegged as newlyweds, connecting them to the late-model Toyota with Pennsylvania plates parked by the dining room. Its rear window and one door panel were still smeared with fading congratulations and off-color honeymoon jokes they would probably be just as happy to be rid of, if only they could find a car wash.

“Dining room’s right through here,” I said, poking a thumb toward the door. They looked like they needed a little nudge to bring them back to earth, though I was as happy to let them ogle the place. They were just the sort of customers who would be back the next year for a week at full-rate with all the goodies. “You folks must be here for the moose run.”

They stopped on the path. “That’s right. We called yesterday? From the Lakeland Inn?”

“Sure thing.” I didn’t know a thing about it, not having taken the call. We shook hands all around. “I’m Jordan. Lucy’s got a table for breakfast all set for you. She says the pancakes are good.”

“Sorry we’re so late,” the man said. “We just couldn’t get our act together this morning.”

“Moose aren’t going anywhere.” They had, of course, already gone. “Take your time. We’ll get you upriver whenever you’re ready.”

“We’re staying in town,” the woman told me, a little guiltily, and for the second time. A good number of the moose-canoers felt the need to apologize like this, as if staying somewhere else was somehow disloyal. “We tried to get in here, but everything was booked.”

“It’s a popular place,” I agreed. “Lots of folks come back every year. We’ve got one guest right now who’s been coming here thirty summers.”

“Thirty summers,” the man repeated. “Listen to that.” He rocked his head upward, bunched up his lips, and gave a short, sharp whistle of amazement. He turned to his wife. “See what I’m saying?”

“I know, I know.”

“Next year, we call well ahead,” the man said.

She rolled her pale blue eyes. “I’ll believe that when I see it,” she said, laughing.

“I’ll tell you what.” I liked these two, and wouldn’t have minded being the one to guide them. By the time we reached the put-in point, five bouncy miles upriver, we’d be like old friends, and they’d hardly remember what it was they came to see-guaranteeing that on the off chance a moose actually did cross their path, they’d remember the sight their entire lives. I was glad to see the man had a camera strapped to his belt, since moose as a rule are dumb as buckets and happy to pose.

“We’ve got some groups checking out this afternoon,” I said. “After the run, come back to the lodge and we can show you some of the cabins. You can see if they suit you. You can book right now for next summer if you want. We might even have an opening later in the week. I can look into it for you.”

“I bet they’re great,” the man said. “Right on the lake like that?” He ran a hand through his hair. “Man.”

The woman leaned a little closer to me; her cheeks were pale, and I had the sense that, if I put my hands against them, they would be cool to the touch, like bed linens. For a moment I felt the urge, and also felt, strangely, that no one would mind if I actually did this. “We drove up from Philadelphia,” she told me. “You could say it’s a total hellhole.”

“That’s a shame,” I said. “I bet it’s nice to get away. Maybe when you get back, things will seem different for you.”

She let her gaze drift past me. Beyond the lodge, the lake was shiny and solid as a ballroom floor under a full morning sun. If they hung around till nightfall, they’d see the same scene in reverse-the surface of the lake so still they’d want to walk across it, a perfect mirror image of the mountains under their feet.

“Pretty nice, isn’t it?” I said.

“Nice? Holy mackerel.” The man puffed up his cheeks and shook his head. “This must be the prettiest place in God’s whole universe.”

I watched them head off to the dining room and then went to check on Kate. I found her down by the storage shed, loading up the bed of the pickup with paddles and life preservers and the old Clorox bottles we used as bailers.

“I think we can time this okay,” she said. “Don’t you have someplace to be?”

“I think I’m stuck here awhile. This thing with Harry might not work after all.” I helped Kate hoist the first canoe up onto the rack over the truckbed. “Hal thinks he may be dying. This isn’t the leaky one, is it?”

“They all leak, Jordan. That’s half the fun.” She jumped down from the bed and pulled her hair back from her face. She was wearing sandals, jeans, a gray T-shirt; over the truck’s fender I saw the sweatshirt she’d worn the night before. I felt like none of us had gone to bed at all.

“Relax, Jordan. I’ll get these folks upstream. Everyone’s going to have a great day.”

“Two groups are in, I think. I talked to one couple. They seemed nice.”

“So, fine. I’ll take care of them. We’re on schedule.” She tilted her head and searched my face. “ Jordan?”

“Aw, I’m okay. It was hard to talk to Hal.” I found myself digging a toe into the gravel and stopped myself. “I think he made me think of my own father, a little.”

“Well, we haven’t really talked about him,” Kate said, nodding. “Maybe we should start?”

“I wish there was something to tell. The problem is, there isn’t.”

She sat down on the open tailgate, snuck a peek at her watch, and squinted up at me. “We’ve got a minute. Tell me anything. What do you remember?”

“He played the guitar. He liked lifting me in the air. His hair felt like touching a broom.” I stopped. I had never said any of these things before. They were ordinary, and all that I had, but I had never said them. “I was three.”