The Underneath Read online

  “Can I have my spaghetti without any sauce?”

  “I don’t really like chicken.”

  “Spinach kind of looks like snot.”

  In such moments, she felt the urge to take the perfectly good, nice, healthy, organic food that she’d ceded an hour of her life to making and shove it in their ungrateful mouths. Don’t you know about the Syrian refugees? The children of South Sudan? It was an absurd idea that if her own children ate their food it made anything better for those ravaged people. She often ate the food herself, so obscene the sight of wasted food in the garbage.

  Did other women feel like this about their children—the sharp rush of resentment? Did they covet such moments of righteousness? Damn you, eat the food! The carefully dressed mothers she saw at the school gates or at the camp drop-off under Phoebe’s gimlet gaze, kissing their little ones goodbye: what did they hide, shameful as bulimics in the dark? Did they stand in a cellar, hammer in hand, staring at the back of their husbands’ skulls?

  Kay had never found a way to speak to them—really speak: the intimate language of coffee and a warm muffin, heads bent, attending. She felt too rough, too loud and unfashionable. What had worked for her as a journalist in Africa was clumsy, gauche in London. Who she had been before was like an old coat, hung by the door, out of season.

  *

  She decided to take the back way along Claremont Hill Road.

  The rain obscured the view. She felt narrowed in, just the road, 20 feet ahead, herself in the capsule of the car. And because of the rain, she was driving slowly enough to see a pick-up parked on the side of the road, and a man looking under its hood. Poor bastard, broken down in the rain. She slowed even more, and was therefore able to distinguish the logo on the door of the pick-up: COMEAU LOGGING. She pulled over, wound down the window.

  The rain spat in her face. “Can I give you a lift?”

  He looked up at her, the rain dripping off his baseball cap. He was in a t-shirt and jeans. The muscles in his arms flexed as he moved. His eyelashes were thick as a girl’s. He studied her car, bumper to bumper, as if it was unusual in some way. Then he came over to her, wading through the rain.

  “Thank you, yes, you can,” he said. She watched him jog around the car. But he didn’t get in. “I don’t want to get your car wet.”

  “I have children; you can’t ruin it more than they already have.” She reached over, pushed open the door. “Besides, it’s a rental.”

  And he was there, filling the passenger seat, rain dripping off his hair. “I really appreciate this. There’s a mechanic just up the road.”

  She put the car in gear, pulled out into the road.

  He took off his hat, pushed back his dark, wet hair. “It’s the connecting rod.”

  “That’s something that connects things, right?”

  He gave her a grin. “You’re not from around here.”

  “London.”

  “Canada?”

  She nearly laughed, but caught herself. “England.”

  “The Queen, tea at four?”

  “Something like that.”

  “You’re here on vacation?”

  Their eyes held just for a moment. She turned back to the road, but she felt his gaze lingering.

  “With my family,” she said.

  “You having a good time?”

  “Great.”

  “Just up ahead.”

  She saw the sign, Mort’s Auto Works.

  She pulled in, stopped.

  “I’m Ben,” he extended his hand.

  “Kay.”

  “Like K, an initial?”

  “No. I’m not that cool. Three whole letters. K-A-Y.”

  “Thank you for the lift, K-A-Y.”

  He started to get out of the car.

  “Ben?”

  He turned, perhaps a little too eagerly. And she asked, perhaps a little too eagerly.

  “Ben, do you know Frank Wilson?”

  He was expecting a different question. His face was still and she could see the effort of the stillness. “Frank Wilson?”

  She smiled, perhaps a little flirtatious. “Yes, Frank Wilson.”

  He tilted his head. “Why are you asking about him?”

  “We’re renting his house.”

  Ben waited for more.

  “The thing is, we’re having a problem with this man trapping coyotes.”

  “Ammon,” he said.

  “Yes, apparently, Ammon. Do you know Ammon?”

  “Yeah, I know Ammon.”

  The way he said this, she wished she could replay again and again, to better hear what the casual tone belied, the multiple chords within the words: what he was actually saying. Yeah, I know Ammon.

  “I thought Frank might ask him to stop. Just while we’re here.”

  “I’ll talk to Ammon.”

  “I’d like to get in touch with Frank myself.”

  Ben swung his long legs out of the car. “And why do you think I know Frank?”

  “Your number’s stored on his home phone.”

  Ben held her look, bland, polite, incurious. “Is it?”

  “And Frank?” Kay went on. “Is he at his cabin?”

  Ben turned back around now, fully toward her. “His cabin?”

  “Is he at his cabin?”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “Ben,” she touched him now, her hand on his arm, she hadn’t meant to. “Is he dangerous?”

  “Ammon?”

  “No. Frank. It’s just, I don’t know, maybe being in his house and not knowing him or where he is, he and Maria. Sorry. I’m not explaining myself.”

  He smiled, quick, confident. “I’ll talk to Ammon about those traps.”

  He rose up out of the car. Kay watched him for a moment, he was impervious to the rain.

  21

  HE SAT IN THE CAB of his truck. The rain refused to let up. He glanced out at the hay fields, whoever owned them had started to cut and now the hay was soaked on the ground. The landscape was pretty here, gently rolling, and the farms in good condition. Family money, he reckoned, or a savviness for state aid. Summer people liked this Vermont, this Maple Avenue, this Sugar Shack Lane and Daisy Meadow Way. He double-checked the address he had, he was nearly there, another quarter of a mile on the left.

  Hadn’t Frank disconnected the land line years ago?

  This woman, this Kay, what did she want with Frank? “Is he dangerous?”

  Ben thought about how he’d seen her on the road right there by his house, and now she just happened to be passing him in the rain. She asked about the cabin. He thought about her elegant wrists, the deep hollow at the base of her throat, because he’d seen that about her, too. She wanted something, all her questions. Eyes on, Slim had said.

  He pulled his phone out, dialed, and Ammon answered.

  “The traps at Frank’s place,” Ben began.

  “Ya met her, then.” Ammon snickered, almost as if he could detect the trace of lust in Ben’s voice. His Doppler for human weakness tuned to the most sensitive frequencies. It was Ammon’s special gift.

  “Can you clear them out?”

  “Why?”

  “Just clear them.”

  Ammon didn’t reply right away. Ben could hear him drinking, then a soft belch. “Ya tellin’ me whatta do, Benny?”

  Ben said nothing.

  “I know about the kid, saw ya with him.”

  Even now Ammon cast a special kind of fear.

  “Ya wanta be a dad now, Benny?”

  Ben hung up. He felt like vomiting.

  At the top of Silver Birch Lane, he reached the quaint summer cottage. He appraised the red cedar siding, 30 grand’s worth, and the white painted gazebo, probably hand-crafted by some local artisan. Then he got out of the truck, stood for a moment so he was good and wet, before stepping onto the front porch. He took off his ball cap, held it in his hands. He found this attitude of humility effective. People associated good manners with honesty. He knocked on the door of The
odore Morse.

  “Justa sec!” from inside, an older voice. Mr. Morse was old, which was good, and the barking of a big dog. Also good.

  Dogs always liked him. All he had to do was remain absolutely calm because dogs were drawn to calmness. They scanned you with their noses, a 3-D hologram of smell, and they’d store this in their brains so you would always be familiar. Initially a friend, always a friend. Dogs don’t make assumptions, but in the long run they’re lousy judges of character.

  The dog barked, desperate to get a whiff of the stranger at the door.

  Soon the door opened a crack, a 70-ish man peered out, grasping the collar of a large pointer who leapt and snapped.

  “Hello,” said Ben. “I’m Ben Comeau.”

  “Sorry about T.J.”

  “I’m fine with dogs, I love dogs.”

  The man let T.J. go and T.J. made a bead for Ben, wildly sniffing his hands and jeans. “He’s a beauty.”

  Purebred, Ben had already noted, an expensive breed. The dog was sitting now, pressing his head against Ben’s thigh. Ben moved his hand very slightly onto the dog’s head, just the smallest amount of pressure so the dog knew its boundaries. The man noted, “He likes you.”

  “My pa said I have a way.”

  Pa. My pa. The irony ladled on so thick, it almost became a joke. Sure enough, the man stuck out his hand. “Morse,” he shook Ben’s hand firmly—the cultivated handshake of a successful businessman. “Teddy Morse. My wife Evie, she’s here somewhere. We just bought the place this spring.”

  Ben nodded. “I was sad about Old Mac.”

  Teddy Morse smiled, unsure.

  “The previous owner,” Ben clarified. “He’d been born in this house, got pneumonia, he’s in The Pines now.”

  Instinctively, Teddy glanced at the grove of Scotch pines to the south of the drive. Ben laughed warmly, “Oh, ha, no, I mean The Pines in town, eldercare place. But looks like you’ve fixed this place up, very fine.”

  “Well, Ben?”

  “Mr. Morse, I’m sorry to just show up like this, but I know you’re summer people.” He edged toward shyness, lowering his eyes often so Teddy Morse wouldn’t know summer people marked him, how he and Frank had scoured town reports for owners with addresses in Boston or New York. “My family used to own the property next door, where the Wileys live now? A long time ago, 200 years, my family owned this piece, too. Sheep, in those days.”

  Teddy nodded.

  “The reason I’m here is that I know your woods haven’t been forested for a long time—20 years, in fact. Because my pa and I did the job back then. You’ve got a lot of deadwood and overcrowding that’s affecting the health of the good trees. It’s also a fire hazard, especially with summer predicted to be dry. Mac let the woods go, he couldn’t keep up, especially after his son moved to Florida, and they’re in bad shape.”

  “Oh,” Teddy blinked. “We don’t know much about woods. You’d better come in.”

  Ben stepped into the mud room. How nice it was, hooks and drawers, white paint and a contrasting trim of sky blue. He started to take off his boots. Golden manners, humility.

  “Goodness, don’t worry about that,” Teddy urged him on. “Evie? Evie? Nice fellow here, Ben, local, wants to talk to us about our woods. Can you bring us out a pitcher of that sterling tea you make?”

  And so it would go, Ben laying out the land for them, how he was personally connected to it. Sometimes he threw in intimate knowledge of a unique bear—“Ol’ Clubfoot”—or the famous eight-point buck: “A lot of us have seen him, but he’s smart; there’s a reason he’s lived so long.” In some versions, the buck vanished and reappeared as if by magic directly behind the hunter, no way he could have moved that quickly, which begged the question whether he was even real or an Abenaki shaman’s spirit. Other times, Ben would talk about logging the land with horses, and how this was “real” logging, and he’d bring his pair up here except one was lamed from a botched shoeing.

  Regardless, the woods now owned by Teddy and Evie Morse or Betty and Sam Goldman or Zack and Mitch Bradley were in bad shape, they needed thinning, tending. In the old days, woods took care of themselves, but now—now, with invasive plants and the whole predator chain amok and climate change—now you had to take care of the woods. Curate was a word rich summer people loved. He wasn’t logging, he was curating.

  When the conversation came, gently, to the matter of price, Ben demurred. “I’d have to look at what’s there. I couldn’t just give you a number.” He explained the complexity of which mills took which lumber and for what purpose and how some had closed down due to the economy and, first off, he’d have to determine the quality of the lumber. He’d always add, “It’s personal for me, I’ve got to admit, I’ve loved these woods since I was a boy, and they once belonged to my family, so whatever I come up with, cost-wise, will be close to a net figure, just my expenses and a couple of six-packs for the boys.”

  And then, just to completely lull them into trust—these summer people, these soft-pawed city-folk, these flatlanders who loved their token locals, collected them as if they were a set—toothless old dairy farmer, buxom farmstand maid, rugged logger—Ben would add in Frank.

  “I’ll be working with Frank Wilson, the county forester. He’ll oversee my work and make sure I’m complying with the forestry plan you’ve agreed upon with him. He’s a great guy; he loves his trees.” Ben would then smile, twinkly-eyed. “And sometimes we even argue because he won’t allow me to cut something I want to cut. He’ll always err on the side of conservation, while the logger in me’ll see a tree as money.”

  Evie brought the tea, ice cold, lemony, delicious. She was beautiful, Ben noted, the kind of honest beauty women took on only in their fifties, when the game was done. Of course, Evie had money. Not many local women kept their looks: bad diet, lack of dentistry, addiction, and poverty made sure of that. He thought of Shevaunne and how she’d look in ten years, the lines around her lips puckered like a cat’s asshole, her veins like old spaghetti. He thought of how she’d look if she had Evie’s life.

  He was watching Evie. He was murmuring how lovely—how lovely the tea was and what a lovely job they’d done with the house because he knew the effect of a rough-looking guy using feminine words. And he was noticing a duffle bag, packed and ready to go.

  “Well,” Teddy was smiling. “When do you want to begin?”

  “That’s up to you.”

  “We’re just heading back to Boston now. We won’t be back until—Evie, love, we’re in the Vineyard next weekend, right?”

  “And then we’ve got the Bentleys wedding in Ardsley. So not until that third weekend of July.”

  Ben turned thoughtful. “Frank’s son, Frank wouldn’t tell you this, but his son is special needs, so he’s pretty strict about being home on the weekends. But…” Carefully, humbly, as if Frank’s special-needs son weighed on his mind—that cruel, blind bad luck, the love and dedication required to parent such a child: “Would it be all right if we came up during the week? He could look around and just send you the report? Email, hardcopy, whichever works best for you.”

  Like a deer catching scent of the hunter, Teddy hesitated. Good. That moment of doubt would make his fall into trust that much more thorough. Ben sited his shot. “Or, I’m sure Frank could come up on a weekend and go over the report. If you could give him time to make arrangements for the boy. He has a sister who sometimes helps out.”

  A few years ago, when he and Frank had first got going on this scheme, Ben had laid on a story about Frank’s wife needing dialysis. But he’d learned it was better to leave out anything too heavy-handed. People didn’t like to feel guilty. It was better to hint at an honest, earthy family struggling together to make ends meet.

  “No,” Evie said. “It’s fine. Don’t bother him. We trust you.” She smiled at him, an expensive, sexually neutral smile, as carefully constructed as the one he gave back to her.

  “Thank you, ma’am. I think sooner would be bette
r.”

  Evie was looking at his boots, worn from work, his strong hands. “Why don’t you just start tomorrow?”

  “If you’re sure?”

  “Then we won’t have the noise when we’re up here.” Teddy was in now.

  “There’s some paperwork—”

  “I’ll get a pen,” Evie wanted to be helpful, as was her nature.

  22

  By late afternoon, the rain had eased to a sniveling drizzle. In Kamp Wahoo’s entrance, Freya stood by a pile of unclaimed towels, water bottles, and shoes, while Tom swung from the monkey bars in the playground, oblivious to the weather. Weren’t the bars too slippery, thought Kay, would he fall? Her attention shifted closer in, back to Freya.

  For a moment Freya regarded her mother with an almost haughty air, like a chauffeur, a low-level employee. Then she began to cry, her face scrunched up, her eyes averted. Kay reached out, but Freya shrugged her away, strode off to the car.

  Over her shoulder Kay saw Phoebe Figgs looming. “We need to talk.”

  Tom threw his arms around her hips, almost throwing her off balance. “Mum! Do you know that caterpillars change their skin five times before they become cocoons?”

  Kay leaned in, kissed her son. “No, I didn’t know.”

  “Their skins don’t stretch like ours, so they have to get rid of them like a snake. It’s called an instar, right, Mrs. Figgs? After five instars they become cocoons and they turn into goo, just total goo, and then the goo becomes a butterfly. Isn’t that so cool?”

  “Yes, love, that’s amazing, isn’t it. Run along to the car. I’ll be right there.”

  As Tom sprinted to the car, Phoebe handed Kay a business card. “After seven is best.”

  On the way home, both children fell asleep. Kay regarded them in the rear-view mirror. Tom looked more like his father. He would have the same narrow nose and unruly hair, the same length of bones; and Freya resembled her, sufficiently pretty, with Kay’s eyes, almond-shaped, shades of green and blue and gold, traceable through several generations of family photographs.

  Just as she slowed to turn into her driveway, Ammon’s pick-up burned past her and out into the road. Without hesitating, she stopped, jammed the car into a three-point turn, pulled out into the road to follow him. In the back, Tom and Freya remained fast asleep, drugged by Doritos and chlorine.