hat. Only he wasn’t playing it now. He had turned to stare at what was happening at the bar. Standing next to the piano player, also staring, was a tall drink of water with an accordion strapped to his narrow chest. And at the bar, a young man in an expensive western suit was holding a gun to the temple of a girl in a red dress so low-cut that only a ruffle of lace hid her nipples. Drew could see these two twice, once where they stood and once reflected in the backbar mirror.
This was the engine. The whole train was behind it. He saw the inhabitants of every car: the limping sheriff (shot at Antietam and still carrying the ball in his leg), the arrogant father willing to lay siege to an entire town to keep his son from being taken to the county seat where he would be tried and hung, the father’s hired men on the roofs with their rifles. Everything was there.
When he came home, Lucy took one look at him and said, “You’re either coming down with something or you’ve had an idea.”
“It’s an idea,” Drew said. “A good idea. Maybe the best one I’ve ever had.”
“Short story?”
He guessed that was what she was hoping for. What she wasn’t hoping for was another visit from the fire department while she and the kids stood on the lawn in their nightclothes.
“Novel.”
She put her ham and cheese on rye down. “Oh boy.”
They didn’t call what happened following the fire that almost took their house a nervous breakdown, but that’s what it was. Not as bad as it could have been, but he’d missed half a semester of school (thank God for tenure) and had only regained his equilibrium thanks to twice-weekly therapy sessions, some magic pills, and Lucy’s unfailing confidence that he would recover. Plus the kids, of course. The kids needed a father who wasn’t caught in an unending loop of must finish and can’t finish.
“This one is different. It’s all there, Lucy. Practically gift-wrapped. It’s going to be like taking dictation!”
She just looked at him, a slight frown creasing her brow. “If you say so.”
“Listen, we didn’t rent out Dad’s cabin this year, did we?”
Now she looked not just worried but alarmed. “We haven’t rented it out for two years. Not since Old Bill died.” Old Bill Colson had been their caretaker, and Drew’s mom and pop’s caretaker before that. “You’re not thinking—”
“I am, but only for a couple of weeks. Three at most. To get started. You can get Alice to help with the kids, you know she loves to come and the kids love their auntie. I’ll be back in time to help you pass out the Halloween candy.”
“You can’t write it here?”
“Of course I can. Once I get a running start.” He put his hands to his head like a man with a splitting headache. “The first forty pages at the cabin, that’s all. Or maybe it’ll be a hundred and forty, it might go that fast. I see it! I see it all!” He repeated, “It’ll be like taking dictation.”
“I need to think about it,” she said. “And you do, too.”
“All right, I will. Now eat your sandwich.”
“All of a sudden I’m not that hungry,” she said.
Drew was. He ate the rest of his, then most of hers.
2
That afternoon he went to see his old department head. Al Stamper had abruptly retired at the end of the spring semester, allowing Arlene Upton, also known as the Wicked Witch of Elizabethan Drama, to finally achieve the position of authority she had so long desired. Nay, lusted for.
Nadine Stamper told Drew that Al was on the back patio, drinking iced tea and taking in the sun. She looked as worried as Lucy had when Drew sprang his idea of going up to the camp in TR-90 for a month or so, and when he went out to the patio, Drew saw why. He also understood why Al Stamper—who had ruled the English Department like a benevolent despot for the last fifteen years—had abruptly stepped down.
“Stop gawking and have some tea. You know you want some.” Al always believed he knew what people wanted. Arlene Upton loathed him in large part because Al usually did know what people wanted.
Drew sat down and took the glass. “How much weight have you lost, Al?”
“Thirty pounds. I know it looks like more, but that’s because I wasn’t carrying any extra to start with. It’s pancreatic.” He