Frozen Page 18

  “But first . . .” Trinity said, tan arms crossed over her petite frame and staring at the canvas painting of Victor. Her bobbed waves fell fashionably in her eyes as she tilted her head, concentrating.

  “First, this.” She squeezed black paint onto a stained painter’s palette, grabbed a large brush, and dramatically made thick Xs all over his image. When the Xs began to meld, she filled in each and every spot of color until the blues and tans disappeared.

  “Voilà! I’m done with all of that,” she said, standing back as if to admire her work. “Now I feel perfectly fine.”

  And then, as if her crying over Victor had never happened, she didn’t say another word about him. She left to find bedding and returned with a towering stack of blankets. “I took one from here and one from there—that way no one will notice anything missing.”

  Sweat formed on her brow, but she went about making a many-layered bed for me with a pillow near the hearth. “In case someone comes, you’ll be able to climb out to get away.”

  “Up the chimney?” I asked, with a laugh.

  “Where else?” With eyes of flickering green, she replied gravely. “Of course, the chimney. You have to be looking ahead. They’ll stop at nothing, you know, to get to you.”

  I didn’t know then whether my assumptions about Trinity had been wrong, or if she knew more about the far-reaching tentacles of E. W. Ennis and his trusty dog, Mr. Worthington. The part about the chimney wasn’t logical, but her words made me shudder.

  As the sun set, a boat hummed near the island. Trinity pulled the red curtain back a sliver and peered out. “I’ll bring you food, but first I better go and say hello. So my parents think everything is normal.”

  And then she was gone.

  That first night, my thoughts drifted to Owen. All he had to do was leave the creamery door open and leave the cases and the returned cash from sales he’d made. It was a fair deal. By morning, he’d know if he could start over. I hoped.

  I thought my stomach would gnaw itself from hunger. I was starving, and I kept hoping that at any time Trinity would return. When I needed to use the outdoor privy, I was grateful to find a honey pot in the cabin, because Trinity had locked the door shut. The windows, fortunately, locked only from the inside, so I could have made my way out by cutting through the screens.

  Trinity never brought food that long night. My mind bounced over miles of worry. Over being found, over Owen getting hurt again, over Trinity’s peculiar behavior. Since I’d arrived at her studio, I’d felt myself descending into something dark and nameless. I wished to leave and hoped Owen would return for me soon.

  I didn’t see Trinity until the next day. I peered out between the curtains at the lake: the sun arced like a baseball struck high.

  The key turned in the door with a clunk.

  I jumped.

  Barefooted, her hair and navy swimsuit wet, Trinity stepped inside, a basket in her arms.

  “Please. Don’t lock the door!” My voice sparked with anger. “What if a fire started and I needed to get out?”

  “Oh, you’re right,” she said, hurt tainting her brow.

  The picnic basket she carried was filled with corn muffins, slabs of ham, tiny clusters of red grapes tied together with yellow ribbon, two slices of chocolate cake, and a bottle of red wine. “I’m in such a habit . . .” Trinity frowned.

  I collected myself, like puzzle pieces scattered. With so many hours alone, maybe my imagination was overstretched. “What’s all this? And wine?”

  “From the perpetually well-stocked cellar.”

  No wonder Owen had found it easy to be in business delivering liquor when well-respected families like the Bairds disregarded the Prohibition law. I’d only had a few sips of wine before the law went into effect last January. Mr. and Mrs. Worthington had allowed me occasional small glasses when they served wine with dinner. Now with the law in effect nationwide, the Worthingtons never openly served any kind of alcohol, though I knew the tumblers Mr. Worthington and Ennis shared weren’t filled with water.

  From a cupboard, Trinity drew a wine opener and two cut-crystal glasses, skillfully uncorked the bottle of burgundy, and poured. At her urging, we finished off the bottle that afternoon as we ate and talked. I sipped, rather, and she talked and drank. A warm numbness gradually spread from my head to my fingers and toes. She never quite caught her breath between telling me about growing up poor compared to everyone else in Greenwich, Connecticut. “We were the last to get a second automobile,” she said. About how her mother had a baby, a boy who only lived to be two weeks old, and how after that her mother decided never to have children again.

  She explained how her mother never went by Mrs. Samuel Baird but insisted on using her first name—Mrs. Beatrice Baird—now that women could hope to gain equal status with men. “She even opened up a bank account in her own name,” Trinity said, “and shortly after she did that, she opened one for me in my name, too.”

  I pictured Elizabeth Worthington and the way she defended a woman’s place in the home and beside her husband. I couldn’t imagine her demanding her own bank account. She couldn’t muster up enough resolve to spit if she had to. If it came down to a choice, she always sided with Walter Worthington. She loved me, I guessed, as long as it was easy. But if it ruffled the rooster’s feathers, she was quick to go clucking away, head down and pecking at imaginary specks in the sand, to avoid a confrontation. Better to let him have his way.

  Trinity talked on about being sent to boarding school from the time she was eight and how she was always in trouble. “I had tantrums,” she said, staring off into her wine glass. Then she looked up and stated matter-of-factly, “They don’t allow tantrums at boarding school. I was kicked out. A few times. But they never can turn away good money, so eventually, they always took me back.”

  That night, after I had tuned out the scratching of bats in the attic and fallen soundly asleep, the door swung open, and Trinity stepped in. “It’s midnight,” she announced, as if we’d had a plan. A kerosene lamp hung from her hand, casting an amber light around her feet. “Wake up.”

  “What? Why? Is something wrong?”

  “How else will you see the island if I don’t give you midnight tours?”

  Groggily, I followed her into the night. In her nightgown, she fluttered like a moth ringed in ethereal light down the shadowy path.

  I did my best to follow, stubbing my toes on tree roots.

  Under scattered stars and dancing milky-green ribbons of northern lights, she whispered, “Sometime I hope you can sleep on the boat. It’s so dreamy to be rocked to sleep.”

  I wondered why the boat wasn’t in the boathouse to protect it. As if Trinity read my mind, she replied, “The boathouse shingles need replacing, so it’s under construction for a few days. That last storm just about took my socks off!”

  “I know. I had to wait it out in a trapper’s shack.”

  “Oh, yes. Well, this will be a change from that!”

  We stepped onto the boat and under its canopy roof. “First, the galley kitchen,” she said and led me down a short flight of vertical steps. Beyond the stove and sink, seats upholstered in velvet graced a small table. I sat down in the lamp’s glow, smoothing my nightdress over my knees, feeling like royalty.

  From a silverware case, Trinity lifted up a silver table knife by its sharp point, as if to fling it at a dartboard or perform a dangerous circus act.

  Not until that moment did I realize the circus would have come and gone from Ranier while I was at Kettle Falls. I’d missed it, but it barely mattered now.

  “See the T?” she asked.

  I noticed the letter scrolled into the knife handle.

  “Every fork, knife, and spoon,” she said, “and every towel and pillow. Need a robe? There are two in the stateroom, monogrammed, of course. Don’t you think my p
arents went a little overboard?” She laughed. “The boat was a welcome home present.” Between her palms, she rolled the knife handle around and around, the way I’d rolled clay into coils to make clay pots.

  “Home from Paris?”

  She shook her head. “From my last stay at the hospital. But it wasn’t really a hospital at all, more of a resort, really. I wandered around in my bathrobe all day. They say fresh air is so good for you. And you should have seen the rose bushes! Every variety you can imagine!”

  To my relief, she put the knife away, grabbed the lantern from the table, and continued the tour. Back on the main deck under the canopy roof, she pointed to the large steering wheel. “Henry, our caretaker, drives the boat. Guests love to hear him tell stories about the lake. He’s a local, and they find him so primitive!”

  The guests would certainly find old stories of Ranier interesting—especially if they heard of the prank once played with a frozen prostitute. Primitive. I supposed that was one word for it. I thought of Caveman and Bigby—who both lived their lives close to the earth and soil, choosing to live away from society’s scrutiny.

  “After the Titanic went down,” Trinity whispered, speaking fast, “Daddy insisted we have a lifeboat on board.” She pointed out the lifeboat, turned upside down, which sat under the roof behind the bench and captain’s wheel. “As well as life-saving rings. Can you imagine, not enough boats on that gigantic ship? Sinking down . . . down . . . down . . . into that icy blackness, nothing to cling to but ice.”

  I wanted to change the subject. “Guess I’ve never much wanted to think about it.”

  “Oh, I have!” she said. “Over and over! I can imagine every terrible second of it. Out in the middle of those icebergs, in the middle of nowhere, and sinking into that cold, dark water . . . knowing no one can save you—”

  “Trinity, I’m tired.” I faked a long yawn. “I want to head back.”

  With each day that followed, I managed to wash, eat, and sleep in Trinity’s cabin. And she encouraged me to paint while she was gone. Not that my attempts at still life were good, but I kept busy trying to paint dragonflies. When I found one in the flower box outside the window, I carefully set its lifeless iridescent body and delicate etched-glass wings on a display table. I painted it over and over, trying to capture its beauty. But I never could get it quite right.

  It was so different with the piano. My fingers knew how to find the right keys and translate them into something artful. It was one thing that came naturally to me, and I missed playing. With deep regret, I doubted I would have access to a decent piano again.

  Each day, small fishing boats and larger passenger boats came and went in the channel beyond the cabin, some occasionally rounding the point and heading to the island’s main dock.

  Midweek, when the sound of a deep rumbling boat engine floated over the island, I was curious—and restless. I slipped out of the studio cabin and crept to the overlook above the beach and boathouse. Stretching on a carpet of dense moss and under a Norway pine, I watched the fifty-four-foot yacht trinity get under way.

  A U.S. flag fluttered from a pole at the stern, where Trinity now stood and chatted with her parents. She had one hand on a brass pole, next to a short flight of stairs leading to the stateroom, “a fancy word for two beds and a dresser,” she’d explained to me the night of our boat tour.

  On the stern deck, beside a round, red wicker table holding glasses and bottles, her parents sat in chairs against the stern railing. They were a nicely matched couple, both well padded with rounded faces. Samuel Baird, with no hat and gray hair trimmed neatly at the sides of his head, leaned back and reached over and squeezed his wife’s hand. I’d never witnessed such a display from the Worthingtons. Under a straw hat with a scarf, secured at her chin, Beatrice Baird smiled at her husband, patted his hand, and then adjusted the creamy shawl over the shoulders of her summer dress.

  I so wished I could join them and not be hidden away like some castoff. But I kept to the ground until the boat reversed into the bay, then carved a path toward a sky of pink clouds softly layering the horizon and the promise of a fiery sunset cruise.

  When I returned to the studio cabin, to my shock Owen was waiting for me, stretched out on the chaise lounge, arms crossed behind his head.

  I had to catch my breath, and when I tried to speak, the words momentarily froze in my head. “Owen, you scared me!” But what I really wanted to say was that I was so relieved to see him, to see his face mending, not worse for wear.

  “Didn’t mean to,” he said. He swung his long legs over until his boots hit the floor. “I tucked my boat in a little spot just around the bend. Hoped to find you. There’s a big article in The Press. It’s about how you’ve gone missing, and the muckraker reporter is raising questions about Mr. Worthington and how he’s using your disappearance and tugging on heartstrings for political gain.” He pulled a folded newspaper out from his shirt. “Here. You can read it for yourself.”

  I looked at the paper, but my eyes wouldn’t focus. Refused to focus. I looked at Owen and felt a delicious swirling dizziness running through me—better than wine—my body felt remotely connected to my brain. I would study the paper in my quiet hours after Owen left. “I’ll read it later. You’re okay? Everything went smoothly?”

  “Yup. Left what they wanted and hurried back the next morning. They didn’t touch anything else. Didn’t burn down the creamery. I’m lucky.”

  “I’m so relieved. I was worried.”

  He smiled. “Hey, you look good,” he said, with a slight tug on the rim of his cap. “Great, in fact.”

  My heart would not keep a regular beat. “Well, your face isn’t as puffy.” Now the bruising had turned a mix of purple, green, and yellow. I pointed to Trinity’s artist palette resting on the floor by her easel. “But it’s that colorful. I feel bad for you.”

  He raised his forefinger and pointed toward his good eye. “A little kiss, then, to make it better? Just here?”

  I stepped closer to where he sat. He kept his hands to himself as I leaned over and kissed his eyebrow.

  “Ah, better already,” he said. “But maybe here, too?” He tilted his head and placed his finger on the side of his chin.

  “Owen,” I said, the soft scolding in my voice sounding just like Elizabeth Worthington when she tried to correct me. Halfhearted and unconvincing.

  He gave me a puppy-eye sad expression. My hand, almost as if it acted against my will, dropped to his shoulder, and then my fingers explored the curls of hair at the back of his head. Soft and coarse. I leaned closer and placed my lips on his chin. He turned his head slowly, questioningly. Our lips met, softly at first, and then with increased longing. His kiss took me far beyond the walls of the cabin, beyond the island’s shores.

  Suddenly, he pulled away, his hand over his mouth.

  “What?” I asked, bracing myself to be rejected, as Victor had dismissed Trinity.

  He put his hand to his mouth and bruised jaw. “My mouth is too sore.”

  “Oh, sorry,” I said, stepping back. “That’ll teach us.”

  He gently reached for my waist and rested both hands there—as light as feathers—as if waiting to see if a scolding would follow. He looked up, smiled, and held me with his eyes. “Us?”

  “I believe, um, that’s what came out of my mouth.”

  “Hmmm. I figured once you learned I’d broken the law—with your living with the senator and all—that you wouldn’t have anything to do with me.”

  “You thought I’d look down on you?”

  “Hey, you have a fancy life in St. Paul, the biggest house in Ranier—and that’s just your summer cottage. I mean, everyone knows Mr. Worthington designed the lift bridge. I can’t compete with any of that. Not now anyway. But someday—things could be different.”

  “Owen Jensen,” I said, loving the feel
of his name on my tongue. “You don’t know much about me, do you?”

  “I think I know enough.”

  “About my real mother, I mean.” I gathered my courage and continued. “That she used to work in Ranier, for Darla. One of her girls.”

  “Yeah, I heard that somewhere. Guess I didn’t believe it. There’s enough gossip on any regular day in Ranier to fill a barn, floor to ceiling. It’s all manure, far as I’m concerned.”

  “But if it’s true, wouldn’t that change how you think of me?”

  “Sadie Rose,” he said, lifting his hands toward my face, his warm palms against my cheeks, “you are not your mother.”

  I flinched and wanted to look away. I worried tears would start. But Owen’s eyes, brown as a beaver’s pelt, wouldn’t let me go.

  “Listen, whatever your mother was or did, she must have had a whole lotta good in her to produce someone as fine as you.”

  My eyes brimmed hot, and I bit down on my lip.

  He whispered. “I mean it, Sadie.”

  Then he pulled me close and pressed his face against my chest. Standing over him, I removed his cap, dropped it to the floor, and tucked my nose into his head of thick hair. I breathed in the tang of cedar boughs, the heartbeat of whitetail deer, the waters of a vast and flowing lake—all in that one deep breath with the creamery boy.

  Chapter 27

  When Trinity returned at midnight, I was wide awake, thinking of Owen. She lit the gas lamp, and I sat up from my blankets.

  In her arms she carried my mother’s quilt, now folded neatly. It smelled of bleach and soap, and was now a soft winter gray and mended with light blue stitching. It seemed the nicest gift I could ever hope for. “Oh, Trinity. Thank you!” I said, rising, but she stopped me with her hand.

  “No, don’t get up. And thank the help, not me.” She set the quilt on the chaise lounge.

  Then she tilted her head and crossed her arms, gestures I’d seen many times from her before, but this time her green eyes flashed. “There’s something different about you. You’re glowing.”