Brock Clarke - The Happiest People in the World

Out in the country north of Broomeville there was a winding two-lane road that, briefly, when it crossed the Otanga River, turned into a one-lane wooden bridge. There were older wooden bridges in the state of New York, but this was the oldest one that still allowed automobiles to cross. Schoolchildren were often bused to the site to appreciate the bridge’s historical significance and also its sturdy architectural features.

And on the other side of that bridge was an ice cream stand. It, like so many of its kind, had picnic tables overlooking the river, encouraging people to enjoy watery nature while eating their soft-serve. Ellen and Kurt were doing that. They’d come straight there after the band concert, to celebrate. But it was a muted celebration. This was the last week of the ice cream stand; on Sunday it would close and not reopen again until Memorial Day. There is a melancholy known only to the owners and patrons of seasonal businesses. Still, Ellen was doing her best.

“When did you learn to play the trumpet like that?”

Kurt smiled, shrugged. Ellen had chosen vanilla; Kurt, a twist. He twirled and addressed the dark side of his cone. They were sitting on the same bench, their backs against the table, watching the river, which was full to the point of possible flooding. Ellen liked the river when it was this way. It was fun to watch fallen tree trunks roar down the river and then get hung up on the other big logs jammed together under the bridge. Suddenly a guy wearing a wetsuit and a cap with many lures attached and holding a fishing pole came bobbing by in an inner tube. He waved to them with his feet as he drifted past, going under the bridge and out the other side, not getting stuck on the logs. Ellen had never seen any such kind of person on this river before. The sight of him made her even more uneasy than she’d already been. Where did he come from? she wondered. And where is he going?

“Well, you really were great,” she said.

“I didn’t see Mr. L. there.”

“He was late,” Ellen said.

“How late?” Kurt asked, and now it was Ellen’s turn to shrug. In truth, she didn’t know. After the last song, Ellen had gotten out of her seat, and there Henry was, standing toward the back of the auditorium. He’d smiled at her. But there was something wrong with his face. It looked red, wet. Had he been crying? Why the hell had he been crying? Why the hell had he called Denmark from Matty’s office? Before Ellen had seen him standing there, she’d thought, Just one more thing, and she was thinking it now, too.

“Køkkenbord!” Kurt said, suddenly, loudly, startling Ellen into dropping her ice cream.

“Jeez, Kurt.”

“Sorry.”

“What was that ?” she said. He repeated the word, and she asked, “What does that mean?”

“Counter,” he said. He had a kind of secret smile on his face. “ Køkkenbord equals counter.”

“In what language?”

“Swedish, I guess.” He told her about the day that Henry had come to town, two years ago. How Henry had dropped two pieces of paper on his way out of Doc’s. One was a cartoon of Henry sitting at the counter in Doc’s with Kurt watching him from outside. On the other piece of paper, Henry had written the words KØKKENBORD=COUNTER. Kurt told Ellen that he and his cronies were trying to figure out how to pronounce the word when this strange woman started hassling them. And then they couldn’t find the piece of paper. And then Kurt couldn’t remember the word, until now. It’d been driving him crazy. “Weird, huh?” Kurt said.

Yes, Ellen thought but did not say. Cartoon? Strange woman? Køkkenbord ? Suddenly she remembered that cartoon, that word, although not the strange woman. The pieces of paper on which they’d been written and drawn had been on Henry’s floor the first night she’d slept with him. He’d said he’d drawn the cartoon; he’d said the word was Swedish. The explanation seemed reasonable, so reasonable that she’d forgotten about the whole thing. “Not that weird,” she said. Still, Ellen took her phone out of her pocket. “Spell it,” she said. Kurt did; Ellen typed the letters. Køkkenbord, her phone said, was the Danish word for “kitchen counter.” Then she translated kitchen counter into Swedish; a word came up, but it was not køkkenbord. Her first thought was, Deny! But Kurt was already looking over her shoulder at the phone.

“Huh,” Kurt said.

“Huh,” Ellen said, putting the phone back in her pocket. “I’ll have to ask Henry.”

“Yeah,” Kurt said. He was almost done with his cone. Meanwhile, Ellen looked at hers, lying on the grass, which was dead. The cone was ruined, she thought, the grass was ruined, everything was ruined. These were her thoughts. And then to counter those thoughts she thought, Don’t be ridiculous. And then she thought, Counter. She thought, Cartoon. She thought, Denmark. She thought, Strange woman. She thought, This is that one more thing.

“Where do you think that guy in the inner tube went?” Kurt said. And when his mother didn’t answer, he said, “I really want to go somewhere.”

“Where?”

“Anywhere,” Kurt said. “Another country.”

“You’ve been to Canada,” Ellen said. She and he and Matty had taken a trip to Niagara Falls four years ago. They’d walked across the bridge and said, “We’re in Canada!” and then walked back. That was her only time out of the country, too.

“Canada doesn’t count as another country,” Kurt said, finishing off his ice cream and wiping his hands on his jeans. “Come on, Mom. Everyone knows that.”

“I don’t know that,” Ellen said. Because she and Henry had been planning to go to Canada — to Montreal — for their honeymoon. They were to leave on Saturday, after the wedding. She got up and then Kurt did, too, and they walked to the truck, got in. Kurt drove. He drove in a way engineered to make his mother crazy: casually, one hand out the window, the other at the bottom of the steering wheel. But just now, Ellen barely noticed. The truck made loud thumping noises as it crossed the wooden slats of the wooden bridge. But the rest of the ride was smooth to the point of unconsciousness. It was as though Ellen had fallen asleep and twenty minutes later woke up in front of the old stone house. I’m home, she thought, and then she thought, What a weird thought to have. This hadn’t been her home for two years. Meanwhile, Kurt was already out of the car and leaning in through the driver’s side window, looking at her worriedly.

“You OK?” he asked. Kurt seemed genuinely worried about her. God, she loved him. There was always that, right? No matter what happened, she would have Kurt, and Kurt her. That would be enough, right?

“Just taking a little nap.”

“Your eyes were open.”

“Yup,” Ellen said. And then she scooted along the length of the bench seat, put the truck in gear, and drove in the direction of the Lumber Lodge.

Ronald’s plan, if you could call it that, was to get this Ilsa to Broomeville and reunite her with this Jens Baedrup and see what trouble that might cause. It seemed simple enough. But now there were all these problems. Starting with Ilsa’s bus, which was late.

“You’re taking a bus?” he’d asked her on the phone. Buses, thought Ronald, were for poor people; Ilsa did not strike him as poor, maybe because Ronald was poor and she spoke better English than he did, even though it wasn’t her language. “You’re taking a bus ?”

“Is there a train or a bus that will take me to Broomeville?”

“There’s a bus,” he said. “You could also rent a car.”