Lakewood

Chapter 9

“Is anyone staying in town this summer?” Dr. Laighles asked my history class back in April. No one raised their hand. “There’s no one spending the summer in Chautauqua?”

My only job prospect in Atlanta was cutting, delivering, and stacking firewood with Ryan Hanson at his father’s business. He and I had our Eagle Scout ceremony together. I helped with his Eagle project, and he helped with mine. At two bucks an hour, the job was acceptable.

“Well, I need someone to housesit. If you change your mind or know someone, stop by my office.”

Late in the afternoon, I stopped by his office to see him, but he was not there. In his message box was a note from Mary Cox explaining her experience babysitting and how she housesat for her aunt in Sommerville, Massachusetts, a Boston suburb. I stole her note and left him a note of my own. I tore up her note and flushed it down the toilet in the men’s room.

The morning Dr. Laighles and Emily finished packing the car and left for London, I stood next to a portion of concrete my father had poured in our walkway. With Popsicle sticks, Kimberly and I etched our names and the date, “April 13, 1962.”

I wonder if they think the etching is mine. I haven’t told them I used to live here. Do they know?

When I first met Mrs. Laighles, Emily, a few weeks ago, she was walking down the staircase carrying a box of old clothes that did not look like anything either of them would wear. She is thin, elegant, and graceful, like a figure skater. She could make washing the dogs look like a tea party in a rose garden.

She and Dr. Laighles are from Chicago. When Dr. Laighles asked me, “What’ll it be, whiskey, scotch, gin, or vermouth?” Emily said, “Floyd, do you have to ask everyone that?”

I settled for a Coke.

They walked me around the house and backyard as they pointed to certain things, unaware that I probably knew the house better than they did. I have actually been inside the cupboards. Emily showed me things I had seen a thousand times as a kid and never took notice of. They now seemed more interesting:

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This past winter, during a two-week period when the temperature rose into the high forties, there was a huge rainstorm and a few violent thunderstorms. The lightning from one thunderstorm sparked a fire in the town of Ripley when it hit a barn. A tree was knocked over on campus near the science building, pinning a girl to the ground. Dr. Laighles ran over to her and when he couldn’t pull her free, he lifted the tree enough so another man could pull her out. The history department held a party in his honor and the Chautauqua University Eagle, (nicknamed The CUE) as well as the Jamestown Post-Journal, plastered his picture on the front page.

Dr. Laighles is tall, has a thick mustache like Grover Cleveland. He has a thick beard, like he’s a 19th Century politician. He’s a big guy, burly.

He shocked everyone at the party when he said, “Anyone associated with the jubilation of this event is a coward. You would have done the same. And, if not, then I’m not interested in your company.”

I stood there next to Marcy Summers, a grad assistant, eating a sugar cookie and drinking punch. When Dr. Laighles stormed out, he left everyone wondering if they could have saved the girl. I doubt I could have. I don’t have much upper body strength. I wish it wasn’t true, but I’m weak. I was just not built for strength. I’m quick and agile instead.

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A little while ago, I ran the dogs over to campus and bumped into Mitch Lancaster. He’s the editor of the Chautauqua Historian, the university’s historical journal. He may be good in history, but he’s failed math twice and is just now taking freshman biology. He’s the favorite student in the history department because, as a freshman, he published two articles in a highly respected magazine, The Civil War Now. He had just loaded up his Beetle and was about to head home to Memphis for the summer when I ran into him.

Chautauqua HistorianThe Civil War NowMitch said the following:

Your girlfriend, Caroline, (she’s not my girlfriend—the Ice Queen) she went on a date with Wally Olmstead to The Tiger Buddha and he kept putting his chopsticks in his mouth and acting like he was a walrus, which really pissed her off. When he told Caroline that he had two pet pigs named Macon and Bacon and wanted to know if she was into Making Bacon, she got all huffy. She then excused herself and went to the restroom. While she was there, he left and stuck her at the restaurant with the check. In Stephenson’s biology review, Wally wouldn’t leave her alone. He apologized for being a jerk and kept trying to get a second date. He offered to pay her back for the dinner. Finally, Stephenson stopped his lecture and told her to leave if she couldn’t be quiet.

“I’m not the one talking. It’s Wally and he won’t leave me alone.”

“I don’t care what the problem is, you work it out after class.”

“There’s nothing to work out. This guy’s a weird f*****g pervert.”

Stephenson, who is a lay-minister and doesn’t tolerate cussing and drinking, kicked her out of class. She never showed up for her final exam.

“What happened?” I asked.

“I guess she failed.”

If I ever have the opportunity to go on a date with Caroline DeBauché, I will not take the Ice Queen out for Chinese food.

Beautiful, though Caroline may be, from my conversations with her, she’s a bitter pill.