has done too much wilderness traveling not to be wary of unknown food sources. If everyone stays healthy, she’ll eat tomorrow. Presently, she leans against the stone hearth, looking over into the warming fire, with a cup of hot coffee.
Around the dinner table are the Krafts, Hobbs, two college boys named Grant and Bruce, the Hutchinsons, a young married couple, and two hard-core redneck fifty-year-old fisherman named Dan and Mike. On the table is a bowl of hearty looking beef stew and a loaf of brown bread. Alison does not eat meat, but would never admit it with this crowd. She notices there is no green anything, no salad, no string beans, no asparagus…nothing. Ironically, she thinks, all of the green is outside. The bread looks okay and she could eat that if she could eat - which she can’t.
Grant continues, “Hey, look, we’re all disappointed, but only a moron would go out in a boat in this kind of storm.”
“Are you calling me a moron, college boy?” Dan riles easily.
“It’s a general comment. Not specific to anyone here,” he answers coolly.
Mike talks to Dan, “Calm down. The kid didn’t mean anything by it.”
Bruce joins in, “Maybe it’ll blow through by morning.”
Dan looks to Hobbs for input, “Will it?”
“Dunno.”
“Yeah,” Dan looks dejected, “I sure as hell didn’t come all this way to play Parcheesi.”
Jimmy says delighted, “You have Parcheesi?” Hank laughs and Jimmy looks at him confused.
Julie Hutchinson says, “Have you ever been fishing, Jimmy?”
“No, but so far, this is the coolest vacation we’ve ever had.” Hank and Alison exchange smiles. “Last year we went to this boring hotel in France.”
Julie holds her grin, “Yeah, sounds awful.”
“Nothing to do there. Mom liked it ‘cause at the beach she got to take her top off.”
“Jimmy, I did not.” The group looks at Alison who reddens.
“Okay you didn’t but other girls did. It was gross. They were all old.”
“Clearly the wrong child to take to Nice.” She looks back at her plate with the one chunk of bread on it. Her stomach lurches again. “How can I still be seasick? I’m on the ground.”
“Sometimes it takes a couple of hours to feel normal again,” Bella says kindly. It only took Bella seconds to recognize this is not Alison Kraft’s idea of a vacation. She is so obviously the gentle bookworm type. Bella doesn’t usually run into women like this when she travels. They are usually more like Julie Hutchinson: Patagonia jacket, hiking boots, scrubbed face, no nail polish. Yes, there is most definitely a type of woman for this kind of travel. Maybe that should be the angle for her story, she thinks.
* * *
Chapter Ten
Out on Lake Superior the defining edge between air and water has become indistinguishable. The lake is apoplectic: spastic water reaches up white-armed toward the sky as saturated charcoal clouds spit back. The storm batters the speedboat carrying the Burne boys. Gravel, Theo, and Kent sit stoically and completely relaxed. The crushing natural display bores them. They are accustomed to sharper stimulation. Ben is calm at the controls. He revels in the icy slap of the elements on his bare cheeks and forehead. He smiles. His biggest complaint about prison is that it was dull. Now, he is moving again and he likes moving. Who was it who wrote, “How dull it is to pause?” Something someone read to him on the inside, probably that annoying librarian who spent more time fucking inmates than lending books. He remembers that poem though because he had liked something about it; it stayed with him. He’s proud of his memory: exacting and steely. He remembers things in distinct detail. He remembers plenty of storms exactly like this one when they were growing up. His mom used to make them stand outside and yell at the lightning. Four little boys, out in the pouring rain, screaming at the sky. It was empowering. She prepared them so well for life. He is so grateful to have been home-schooled, and not contaminated, or brainwashed, by the fairy tales they stuff down the throats of little kids. Mother taught them the truth: beyond each other, there is no one and no thing of value. “Civilization is a pretty dress on a snake,” Mom used to say. “There’s no right or wrong, just winners and losers, and the winners get to write the books to make ‘emselves look good, but the bare-assed truth is any human starving in a snow bank will eat his neighbor.