II

        I had come to Florida two years before quite simply because my time at grad school had more or less come to an end. I had trouble writing short stories but had completed enough research to leave (first as ABD, then later as a full graduate). In my final daunting year, my major professor (a Hemingway groupie named Nancy Cummings) said to me, "You know, most of your stories are about how men have trouble getting beyond brotherhood and settling into something more substantial," and then, after she saw the look on my face, clearly revealing I had not known this about my stories-or more specifically, about myself-she added, "but I think it's good to have obsessions. It's something that can see a writer through." She went back then to eating her pasta salad (which we had purchased at the campus café) and spreading cream cheese over an onion bagel. "Hemingway had obsessions too," she said as though this might smooth things out. "He was obsessed with being a failed lover." It was that lunch, I later saw, as a turning point, a place where for a time I had learned too much about myself to write effectively. In the following months I merely stared at my computer screen, trying to construct what had already been constructed for me. Eventually I placed my stories on my bookshelf (neatly stacked, as I liked them) then went about writing application letters to various colleges in need of a good junior professor, one who had most surely entered a period of wandering and was looking to save himself. It was for these reasons-these and many others-that I was so pleased when I met Hannah.
        I met her in mid-January, shortly after my students had returned to school and were settling into new classes. I used to see her at the local dock, where she often unloaded her kayak and where I had come to read and to enjoy whatever pleasantness might be had on a fair Florida afternoon. I began to notice how determined she was, how she would not let the local men (including me) help her with her kayak, how she went about her business in her own arena of solitude, which was the first thing I liked about her, her tough-mindedness, her bend towards self-reliance.
        I fell in love especially hard; this is, I fell in love before I knew her. I used to arrive around three and sit in an old folding beach chair, a book (or if I was particularly optimistic, a pad and pencil) in my hands, and simply wait for her Toyota to come churning down the hill, a red kayak attached to her roof rack by an intricate weaving of bungie cords. She would walk to the river, take a good long look, then return, loosen her craft and carry it to the water. I fell in love with her voice, with her eyes, with how she was both a realtor and a kayaker (an odd combination, I thought). I loved how her newspaper ads were not accompanied with the usual mug shot (she was quite pretty and might have found more clients this way), how her bumper was covered with Democratic slogans ("I think therefore I do not listen to Rush Limbaugh"; "Clinton's good, Gore might be better"; and of course "Drop Dole"). I loved how she looked in her brown realtor's coat (a bright patch for "American World Realty," stitched over her breast pocket); how she looked in her kayaking outfit (cotton tanktop, nylon shorts); how she looked dressed up at a local cafe (she was there with her ex-hubby, who was a philosophy teacher in another county). She had a particular confidence, a type of aggressiveness, a sureness that dared you not to look away.
        One day in February (after my students had vamoosed for President's Day Weekend) she stopped beside my chair, her paddle in one hand. "I didn't know English professors were so interested in the river," she said.
        "How do you know I'm an English professor?" I asked.
        "You told me once," she said, then sat by me. "A long time ago I thought about going that route too. Head off to grad school, see where it got me."
        "It's not all it's cracked up to be," I said, "but it's better than some things, I suppose. What do you do for a living?"
        "You already know," she said. "I saw you down by the office one day."
        "Very observant."
        "A woman has to be," she said.
        She settled beside me, glancing down at her kayak, which was tied up at the dock.
        "So tell me," I said, "why did you go into realty?"
        "What else does an old philosophy student do?"
        "Teach," I said.
        "My ex went into teaching. It didn't really appeal to me. By that time, we were getting a divorce."
        "I see," I said.
        "Why did you decide to teach?" she asked.
        "Because I'd hung around grad school so long I was useless to do anything else."
        She shifted how she was seated, folding her legs beneath her. She appeared to be thinking about me, whether or not I'd do well in love, whether or not I'd end up like her ex, but before she could come to any conclusions (neither of which, most likely, would be favorable towards me), I said, "if I asked you on a date, would you go?"
        She looked at me, at how I was seated in my old beach chair, a bottle of glacier drinking water by my side, two extra pens in my shirt pocket, a batch of student essays scattered around my chair (the worst of which was titled, "Gatsby and Homoeroticism, a Talk Show Approach"). "Tell me something," she said. "You've never been married, have you?"
        "No," I said. "Is that important?"
        "Not really," she replied then stood and brushed grass clippings from her shorts. "Just curious. Wanted to know what I was getting myself into." She began walking toward the dock, her bare feet padding over bare earth, her face lifted towards the sun, her hair (recently freed from a more business-like French braid) swinging in a ponytail.
        "You never answered my question," I said, "the one about a date."
        She turned to face me, her lips curved up in a smile, her eyes taking on a sheen I'd never seen in them. "Of course," she said. "I'd love to go."
        I watched her slip into her kayak, the double-paddle stretched out before her. Using short strokes, she worked her way up river, where the water was wide and where, if I was lucky, she'd feel good about life in general, simply because we had talked and because we would, in the coming week, go on a date and see if we might make a break for the big time and fall in love.
        Two days later, I told my friend John. We were down at visitor's central, working on a display which featured two river otters (fresh from the taxidermist) sunning themselves on rocks (although otters rarely did this in the wild). The center was quiet that day-quiet except for the other employees. Back then Missy Gardiner had not yet been hired, but still I saw John's eyes stray, more than they had the previous year, toward other attractive women who worked there. "So Hannah Gates?" he said. "You're going on a date with Hannah Gates. Isn't she that realtor?"
        "She is," I said. "She used to be married to a philosophy teacher. She was a philosophy student herself."
        "That sounds more like you," he said, arranging plastic reeds that had been varnished to appear wet, "someone caught up in philosophy."
        "What do you mean by that?" I asked.
        "Like attracts like, I figure. You'd be interested in someone trying to figure out the big picture. I don't see you being too taken with land sales and house prices. That's not your sort of thing."
        "Then what is my sort of thing?"
        He ignored my question, kneeling down into the exhibit, as though he hadn't heard me. Using wire and a crimping tool, he attached the reeds to base board. "I bet she one time wanted to be a professor as well," he said.
        "What are you getting at?"
        "Just that, deep down, you think everyone wants to work for a university."
        I looked at him, how he was bent under the display case, his face covered with stubble, his hair pulled back into a short ponytail (which he later cut), his eyes slightly swollen (though he had no allergies). He stopped for a moment, crawled out, then sat beside an engraved sign which said "American River Otter" in a boxy Federally-approved font. He folded his hands into his lap. "Look," he said, "I didn't mean any of that. I'm just in a sour mood today. I didn't sleep much and I'm not thinking straight."
        I sat beside him.
        "Things at home are kind of rough," he said. "We've fallen into some sort of fight, the kind where Sam gets homesick for Idaho. It'll probably last a week. But still, a long week for everyone involved." He stood up, dusted off his pants, then walked toward the office, where sodas were kept. "Honestly," he said, "I think Hannah's a great woman. I've met her a couple times. Seems real nice. I hope you have a good time on your date."
        "I hope so too," I said.
        He took two sodas from the fridge-probably wishing they were beers-then handed me one. We went behind the building, where a marsh opened towards a field: real reeds rising from water, a few river oaks and willows, in the distance a field of grass. We heard the long slow sound of a bullfrog, his rising "uuurp," which struck me as a sorrowful sound. "Don't mind me too much," he said. "I'm just down on love in general this week."
        "I've been there too," I said.
        He looked at me then, like I had no idea what I was talking about, which, I now see, was probably true.
        We finished our sodas, listening to the solitary bullfrog and to the social murmuring of unseen ducks. When finished, he crushed his can into a green recycling bin. I did the same with mine. "If you got some time," he said, "I could use some help with the otters."
        "I've got time," I said.
        We walked inside, where it was dim, the lights focused on individual displays, as though it were more a museum than a visitors' center. When we reached the display, John said, "We wouldn't need to make things like this if only people would go out, spend a few hours on the water, and wait for the animals to come down to the bank. Otters come down every morning, every evening."
        "Most tourists will never go for that."
        He crawled under the exhibit where he'd stacked driftwood. "I know," he said. "People just don't know what's good for them."
        The following Friday, I went out with Hannah. I met her at the realty office, out by the reader board which listed the special of the week: "Luxury Riverside Home. New Floors. New Roof. Private Dock. Motivated Seller." She stood beneath a light, wearing jeans and a tweed jacket (The American World blazer no doubt ditched in her Toyota). She held her purse close to her side, her hands clasped together, and when I approached, she smiled at me in such a way I knew two things: she liked me and was unsure if she should. I was a man who could be a serial killer for all she knew. Or, more likely, a man that (after a couple years) might turn out like hubby number one, off at some liberal arts college, divorced for whatever reason men get divorced. As we met, she touched my hand, a soft gentle touch, as a way to prevent me from kissing her, although I would never do anything so forward. It wasn't until after dinner, when we were sitting around at a coffee shop, that she started to loosen up and relax around me.
        She sat in a little wicker chair, holding her cappuccino with both hands and blowing a thin stream of air over it. She looked at me very intently, as though she were trying to figure me out. We had been talking about college when she said, "I really like talking with you. I'm just noticing that now, how much I like it. I'm having a good time tonight."
        "Don't you usually have a good time on dates?"
        "No," she said, "do you?"
        "No," I said, "I guess I don't either."
        "It was easier, when I was young, before I got married, to have a good time on dates."
        "I've never been married," I said.
        "Doesn't matter," she replied. "Being in love once usually ruins dating for life."
        A waiter approached us then. He asked if we cared for anything else and, after we'd said "no," left the check. Candlelight flickered around us and, in the background, our shadows moved across the wall.
        Alone again, she looked at me in a very tender way. "You," she said, "would be a difficult person to be in love with."
        "Why's that?" I asked.
        "Because you don't really know what you want."
        "I often think I know," I said, realizing of course that that was not the same thing at all. We sat there a moment, just listening to people around us. "Do you ever wish you'd gone off to grad school," I finally said, "and had become a teacher?"
        "At times," she said, "but not so much any more. That's part of my old life, the one I had before I went and got divorced, though sometimes I think parts of it might have turned out OK."
        After we paid the bill, we began hoofing it back to my car, as we had wandered a good ways from the parking lot. Above us, clouds striped the sky, and above them, a smattering of stars gave off their illusion of twinkling. The town was still done up for Presidents' Day: a flag tied to every lamppost, red-and-white banners dangling from buildingtops. In store windows, posters featured our first president (hacking away at the cherry tree) and Honest Abe (pacing the White House gallery, no doubt contemplating the evils of slavery). Hannah and I did not hold hands, did not lean into each other (though I wanted to), just walked in a slow aching way. It was nice, walking quiet like that, nice because we didn't go and ruin the moment with too much conversation.
        When we did start chatting again, I asked if she regretted getting divorced.
        "I liked being married," she said. "Now I like being divorced. There was a time I didn't, but I do now. My ex and I would never have made it for the long haul. We both knew that, especially at the end."
        "Seems a sensible view," I said.
        "If it is," she said, "it's one of the few sensible things about me." She took my hand, her thin fingers curved around mine, and squeezed once. I had not expected this, that she would like me so easily, that she would take some pleasure from walking beside me. We shuffled along the main drag until we reached my car, its interior light clicking on when I opened the door.
        At American World Realty, her car was alone in the lot, the moonlight reflected in its paint. She undid her seatbelt then opened the door. I wanted nothing more than to follow her home (For a cup of joe, say), but had already made some implicit promise not to be that kind of person.
        She stood outside my passenger's door, looking back at me, the guy who was too polite (too much an assistant English professor) to jump out and say something corny which might have placed us under the same sheets that night. I sat there, all buckled in and looked back at her. A slight breeze moved through her hair. She was too far away to kiss. Before she closed my door, I asked her a thing I had wondered about all week: "The day I talked to you, down by the dock, what were you thinking? You looked like you were deep in thought."
        "Honestly," she said, "I was thinking you were going to ask me out. Thinking that and thinking I probably shouldn't go."
        "Then why did you?"
        "Guess I do foolish things sometimes."
        I watched her tilt her head, teardrop earrings dangling from her ears. I knew she was ready to leave-to walk over to her Toyota and start it up-but before she did, I asked, "Did you have a good time?"
        She leaned back into my car, a gesture I did not expect, then kissed me once, her lips just feathering mine. "I'll let you figure that you," she said.
        I waited for her car to start, the engine catching on the second try. The headlights snapped on, then the reverse lights, then her car angled out through the parkinglot. She waved to me once before throwing it into first and heading out onto Eleventh. I watched as her car became small, passing through light after light, each one winking yellow, as all the streetlights do around here after ten-watched until I could not see her car any more, until it merged with the general grayness of town.
        We made love the next week, down by the river, a Mexican blanket beneath us. It was she who controlled the pace: slow intricate maneuvers whose speed gradually increased. She waited at each juncture for my movements to match hers. She was a woman who had definite ideas about love making-definite turns and shifting. Was it from being married, I wondered, from being an attractive woman, or perhaps from spending time by herself to know the natural progression of things; that is, being a person who'd tried to map out her life, assigning each station meaning and, I suppose, ritual. I was no such person. I had made no such plans, but had simply fallen in line behind other grad students, marching through required classes, trying my hand at writing, then hoping for the best on the job market. Afterwards, we lay together for a while, just looking out at the river: black water ran down towards the Gulf; beyond that, oak trees and scrub pines silhouetted against the sky; moonlight webbed the ground. After we were rested, we swam, long lingering strokes upstream. I waited as she dove then returned with a small rock, one marbled black and tan. "When was the last time you went skinny dipping?" she asked. "Years," I said, "not since I left California." I followed her mid-river, where warm water bubbled up from an underground stream. We were floating for a moment, where two currents joined, our bodies unusually buoyant, lightened by the rising water, then we returned to the shore, dried off and dressed. We made our way to her car, where a second bottle of chardonay waited for us, half-submerged in an ice cooler, its label wet and peeling.
        I became amazed by little things, like how her life was lived in large parts alone. At work she assembled the newspaper ads (for which she was paid extra); clients occupied little of her time. After work, she took her kayak up river, leaving South Dock and paddling to Sugar Oak Point, a good two-and-a-half miles each way. In the evening, she often watched classic movies on cable (old Carry Grant flicks, perhaps a MGM musical if one were on); other nights she chose to read: she loved Russian and French novels, which were outside my area of graduate study. Despite her air of solitude, many people in town held precise details about her (that she once read War and Peace on the radio, a local service for the sight-impaired, that she told the funniest jokes at the previous year's Harvest Ball, that she bought egg salad sandwiches from the local deli every Wednesday, on Friday clam chowder because she had been raised Catholic). I was amazed how she kept up these two lives, the private and the public, each one carefully slotted into her day, her whole week neatly arranged. When I went out with her (to dinner, let's say) I watched to see if she looked at other men: she did not. When I asked John if she had dated many men before me, he said, "some," but he couldn't think of who they had been. At night once, while at her condo, I caught her staring out her window, a sweet longing mapped across her face, but when I asked her what she was looking at, she simply answered, "nothing in particular," but I understood this: her world was the world of wide open spaces-the world of philosophy, of the river, of a first husband whose presence lingered just outside the present; but her world was also the realty office, her condo, her Toyota (chosen for its economy), and these things, although they should've, didn't seem out of place when considered from the proper angle.
        In the early weeks of our courtship we met after work, down at the river, where I helped carry her kayak past quietly envious men. I read books or graded essays while she paddled up stream; after she returned we had a beer (maybe dinner as well), but parted early as we both rose before seven most mornings. We spent most of each weekend holed up in her condo-in the bedroom, in the dining room, on the couch, where she read Chekhov stories to me. The nicest thing she ever said to me was: "I wish I would've met you when I was eighteen or nineteen. I would've liked that." The meanest: "The problem with men like you is that you're so caught up in your own past to really notice anything good in the world." The thing I liked the best: how she would meet me most afternoons, often bringing a pitcher of iced tea for us to drink, before she kissed me goodbye and paddled her kayak off to better waters.
        For a while we fell into a dreamy routine-kayaking, drinks, possibly dinner, weekends together-but then something happened: a small shifting between us, a movement I cannot fully put into words, though I will try. We had not made some necessary connection, a hook into a deeper intimacy, and this failure perplexed us. It wasn't until April, over breakfast, that I first realized how these things might be played out between us. We sat on her back balcony, which was screened in and overlooked Meyer's Field, our two chairs not really facing each other, but turned slightly so we looked out at the world. We had made love the night before, had slept well, and had risen to make omelettes and toast. She wore a poet's shirt-a loose night gown that she'd purchased from a lingerie shop because once, while looking in a catalogue, I'd said it was elegant-and as she ate she dabbed at her mouth between most bites, an oddly formal gesture for her, one she used around people she did not know very well. She asked me about my classes, about my writing (which I was trying to start up again) and about John, whose wife had already had her second miscarriage. When I asked, "Would you like to go down to the river with me this afternoon?" she said, "I'd love to, but I told Hugh I'd go into the office and check over the new ad sheets."
        "New ad sheets?" I said.
        She rose, the white poet's shirt falling loose around her thighs, and took our plates from the table. "Yes," she said, "it's how I make money." She kissed the top of my head then headed off to the kitchen, propping the screen door open with her foot. I followed with the silverware, the glasses and the salt and pepper. We washed the dishes by hand-her at the sink, me with a towel-and then placed them back in the cupboard. When finished, I stood behind her, my arms around her middle, and we looked out her kitchen window: at Meyer's Field, at the oaks and willows, and finally at the river (just a murky swirl) that eventually flowed down to my house then out to the Gulf.
        "How are things between us?" I asked.
        She turned to face me, her eyes searching for something in my expression. "They're fine," she said, though I could tell this was not what she meant.
        We showered then dressed then left, driving away from her Condo as we would most any Sunday, only we did not see each other later that day. (We did not see each other until Tuesday.) I went home and spent time reading Catcher in the Rye, which I taught as the final novel for the term. I noticed, too, how I'd spent more time preparing for class (I'd read through recent copies of The J.D. Salinger Journal, though a text called A Theory of Modern Fiction, through two biographies I thought important); I tried my hand at writing again. I saw Hannah most afternoons, as she came down the hill in her white Toyota, the red kayak attached to her roof rack, the usual pitcher of iced tea with her, though as we drank it, she spent more time just looking at the river than she did talking with me. We had entered a period of solace, and though I did not know what it meant, I sensed it was not good.
        Other things around the Gulf had already taken a turn for the worse: house sales were down, the temperature was up, John and Sam had already hit hard times. An air of dissatisfaction settled over the county, thick as the lingering humidity. John and I took to fishing: years ago I had written stories about men who had gone fishing during hard times, men living out west, but found that I understood very little about fishing in the South, where the water was brackish and shallow, about throwing out your line time after time with such determination that, to a passer-by, it might've looked like we were fishing to save our lives, which, in ways, we were. It was on the last of these outings that we saw John's wife chatting away with Barry Stone, the two of them at The Crawdad Pad, just sitting there like gay divorcées (which Barry was and Sam was not). We returned to my dock around seven, a general feeling of sourness between us, though we both tried to wish it away: I was going to spend the evening with Hannah, John was spending it alone;

Pierce home page

Smoke, Part 1

Smoke, Part 2

Dinner at Charlie's, Part 1

Dinner at Charlie's, Part 3

The Last Good Night