"You earned it, Patrick. See you in the morning."
Patrick skipped down the stone steps to the Depresso patio. Willow was
reading at a table, leaning back, her long legs stretched out before
her, crossed at the ankles.
"Hey, Willow."
"Hello, Patrick. Hungry already?"
Patrick patted his stomach. "You make great sandwiches, but--I'm
celebrating. I got a raise."
"Impressive," Willow said.
"I'll tell you about it, if you'd like. But I've got to get a beer.
Want one?"
"No thanks."
Patrick returned with a Heineken, his new favorite. "Yeah, I finished a
house and garage up on the mountain. The Van Slyke's. Do you know
them?" Willow shook her head, no. "He's a painter, and she's a--looker.
He showed me his studio. Do you know what art is, Willow?"
"God, Patrick," she said.
"What's the matter?"
"You ask the most amazing questions."
"Well, I asked Hendrik--Mr. Van Slyke--and he showed me his studio."
"Modest Hendrik."
"He was modest, in a frustrated way. He showed me a painting that he's
been working on all year. Said he couldn't get it. He said that art had
to be true."
"He didn't!" Willow clapped her hand over her mouth.
Patrick looked at her. "You think I'm a moron." She took her hand away.
"I am. But I'm a persistent moron." He took a swallow of beer. "True,"
he said. "I know about true. In science, what is true can be verified.
What is true, is true for everybody. But Hendrik's true is only true
for Hendrik."
"Especially true for Hendrik," Willow said.
"So, it's a different kind of true," Patrick finished.
"Different from science," Willow said, "but useful."
"Useful . . . " Patrick thought.
"Like Beethoven or Dylan true," she said.
Patrick watched people on the sidewalk. "There's more," he said, after
a moment. "There's more about this art and science stuff. I don't
understand it, yet. What's the matter?" he asked for the second time.
Willow was wiping tears from her cheeks.
"It's not your fault," she said. She stood suddenly. "I'm going now."
She pedaled away with her book in the basket. What did I say? he
wondered. He went inside scratching his head. Sue and Jim were at the
bar. He thought about his usual dinner of rice and vegetables. To hell
with it. Deanie's, he said to himself and went back outside. Willow was
gone.
He walked past the News Shop and Ann's Deli and turned down the hill to
Deanie's for a celebratory steak, still wondering what had upset
Willow. The dining room was comfortably filled, cheerful without being
noisy. A bar stretched the length of one end of the room. Sam was there
by himself and said hello. Patrick excused himself as soon as he could
and sat at a small table on the other side of the room. Sam was always
mouthing off about the government and asking everyone where he could
score some grass. He was nervous in a way that put Patrick off. Patrick
didn't want to hassle with anyone who worked for Parker, so he kept his
mouth shut and avoided him. "Meat," he said to Sam. "I've got this
craving for meat. Got to have it!"
"Yeah, man." Sam's eyes darted around as Patrick escaped.
"Medium rare," Patrick ordered, and, by God, that's what he was served.
Delicious. He ate slowly, each bite a mini-ceremony. Eating out was
important to Patrick. While he was working, he worked hard,
concentrating. Dinner was a time to relax, to think, and to look
around. He enjoyed being in the midst of people without necessarily
having to talk to anyone. The Deanie's crowd was straighter than the
Depresso crowd. IBM'rs and local business people mixed with musicians
and artists. The waitresses were middle-aged. The pies were
particularly good.
This was Patrick's third dinner at Deanie's. He was beginning to feel
more at home in Woodstock. His landlady, Gert, had become more
friendly. Patrick was willing to help with little things around the
house, that probably had something to do with it. She was a reader,
too, he'd discovered. They talked about books. The other day, he'd
asked her what she was reading.
"Every story is a love story, isn't it, Patrick?" She had chuckled
comfortably and continued reading. He didn't know what to make of that.
Did she mean every story about anything? Or every story a writer felt
was worth the effort? She had said it as though it were self evident,
as though he shouldn't be pestering her for an explanation. Or maybe he
was supposed to figure it out for himself.
"Wonderful pie," he said to the waitress.
"We make a lot of them," she said. Patrick left a big tip and walked
slowly toward home. He had an urge for a Hershey bar as he passed
Ann's. Ann took his change without comment.
"Willow makes a good sandwich," he said.
"You like her, don't you," she said accusingly. He didn't know what to
say. Ann glared at him. "You young people think we don't feel anything.
Well, you're wrong. What's your name?"
"Patrick."
"We have feelings, too. You think we weren't young once?"
"Sorry," he said, unsure. "Night." He moved toward the door.
"Remember that, Patrick," she flung at his back. Another upset woman.
What was getting into everybody? He looked into the window of the
Depresso. Sue and Jim weren't there. The Go player who had annoyed him
on his first night in town was sitting on a stool in a corner, playing
a banjo. The metallic beat followed him a short distance up Tinker
Street, a sort of urban bluegrass. It was a relief to go quietly to bed
with his book on mathematics.
The next morning it was pouring. Patrick trudged to the News Shop,
where Parker declared a washout. Gino, as senior man, got to work on an
inside job. Everyone else was off for the day. The group milled around,
joking with a drunk who kept coming in and out, clapping people on the
back, breathing beer fumes in their faces, and saying, "How ya doing,
buddy? How ya doing? That good, huh? Ha, ha, ha."
"Good to see you, Billy. Good to see you."
"So who's this?" he asked, putting one arm around Wilson and the other
around Patrick.
"Patrick, Billy. This is Patrick."
"Top o' the mornin', Patrick." Patrick found himself laughing along
with him.
"By Jesus," he said, "top o' the mornin' to you, too." They were
leaving. Billy escorted them to the open doorway.
"Quack," he said, propelling them down the steps into the rain.
"Quack is right," Patrick said. "See you, Willy." Habit took him along
the street to Ann's where he hesitated and then went in. "Hi, Willow.
Rained out!"
Willow looked up. No one else was in the deli. "Patrick, I'm sorry I
left so abruptly last night. I just couldn't . . . "
"That's O.K.; I won't talk about art anymore."
She smiled at him reprovingly.
"Anyway, I can't live without your sandwiches. How about turkey,
today?" He stowed the sandwich in a small army surplus backpack that
he'd bought after his first week in town.
"What are you going to do today?"
"I don't know," Patrick said. "Go to the library, I guess. I'm reading
a great book on mathematics."
"There's supposed to be a party this weekend, Saturday, on the
mountain. Mead's meadow, wherever that is. Music, kegs, a big blowout.
Art says it's a good time. They do it every year."
"You going?"
"Yeah, for a while anyway."
"Maybe I'll see you there," Patrick said. "Day after tomorrow--the rain
should be over by then." Willow seemed pleased, and Patrick left for
the library. Hard to figure, he thought. Last night she wouldn't talk
to me; this morning she invites me to a party. He thought he'd go, if
he could find it. Maybe Art would fall off the mountain.
The library was pleasant and well lit. The science section was a bit
out of date. There were many expensive art books locked in a big case.
The children's room was large and cheerful with a painted wooden riding
horse in one corner. He read for an hour and thought of writing to his
parents, but he hadn't looked up his father's friend. He wanted to do
that before he wrote, so he asked for a telephone book. Heidi Merrill
was listed with an address on Lower Byrdcliffe Road. There was no pay
phone in the library, so he walked over to the Woodstock Laundromat.
Joe Burke was folding clothes, standing at a counter beside a tall
slender woman with long hair. She was teasing him about his folding. He
leaned and said something softly in her ear that made her laugh. Her
voice was low and appealing; it sounded to Patrick as though it had
started in Texas and traveled around the world before it got to the
laundromat. The energy between the two was intense and relaxed at the
same time. Patrick stared.
"Hello, Patrick," Joe said, turning. "This is Daisy."
"Hello, Patrick," Daisy echoed. She looked at him with calm gray eyes
and then picked up her basket of clothes. "Well . . . " she said.
"Onward," Joe said.
"Yes." Their eyes met, and she left, walking as though she were going
slightly uphill. Patrick felt suddenly lonely.
"So, Patrick, what's happening?"
Patrick looked back from the door. "Oh. I'm trying to find someone
named Heidi Merrill. Do you know where she lives?"
"Sure do, going right by there, if you want a lift." What the hell,
Patrick thought, nothing else to do. It doesn't matter if she's home or
not.
"Good deal."
They drove out of Library Lane, passing Billy at the entrance to Tinker
Street. Joe rolled his window all the way open. "Hey, Billy. Want a
lift?"
"Quack. You want me to miss my shower?"
As they drove through town, Patrick said, "I met him this morning in
the News Shop. Quite a character."
"Yeah, we go way back," Joe said. "Used to take me pickerel fishing,
Billy did--one of my heroes. He just got out of the slammer."
"What did he do?"
"One of the state cops, Dusty Rhodes, drove his cruiser into Billy's
driveway to check him out for something or other, about three in the
morning. The way Billy tells it, he woke up with a headache listening
to a siren. He looked out his upstairs bedroom window. 'That damn
flashing light hurt my eyes,' Billy said. So he shot it out with a
30-30. Dusty arrested him for assault with a deadly weapon, and the
judge asked him what he had to say for himself. 'Your Honor,' Billy
said, 'Assault? Do you think if I'd wanted to hit Dusty, I'd have
missed him?' The judge gave him six months."
"He seems like a good guy," Patrick said.
"He is. That's the Merrill's road, there."
Patrick thanked Joe and walked fifty yards through trees to a rambling
house with clapboard siding stained brown. There was a second smaller
house, or studio, some distance behind and to the right. A green
Cadillac, at least ten years old, gleamed in front of the house.
Patrick knocked on the screen door. A woman with a heart shaped face,
wheat colored hair, and clear blue-green eyes answered his knock.
"Yes?"
"Good morning. Are you Heidi Merrill?" She nodded. "My name is Patrick
O'Shaunessy." She straightened. "My father said that you were an old
friend. He asked me to say hello for him and see how you're doing."
"Well! What a surprise. You must tell Brian that we are doing just
fine. Come in." She led Patrick to a spacious kitchen where she poured
coffee into hand-painted mugs. "So, Patrick, how long will you be in
Woodstock?"
"Good question. I think until winter, at least--maybe longer. I like it
here, so far."
"How long have you been here?"
"About a month."
"It is a nice town." A red '52 Chevy with a white convertible top drove
past the kitchen. "Oh, there's Martin, my son. He lives in the studio
behind the house." She looked at him closely. "You do remind me of
Brian, but you must take after your mother. You're shorter, broader
across the shoulders . . . "
"Yes, I guess I do."
"Same smile, though. How is Brian? You have a sister, don't you?"
"Yep, Molly, a year older than I am. She's married, living in Atlanta.
Dad's fine. He's just about to retire from the Army. He and Mom are
arguing about whether to live in Florida or Costa Rica. Heidi went over
to the door where there was an intercom much like the Van Slyke's.
"Martin? Martin, can you come over? Patrick O'Shaunessy is here. His
father is an old friend."