Angel Landing (2 page)

“Listen,” I said, wanting to make peace, “I like poets. I really do.”

“Hah,” Minnie said.

“Emily Dickinson,” I offered.

“That hermit?” Minnie said.

I turned to the window, watching the harbor, trying to think of a poet, other than Uncle Alex, whom Minnie would approve of. It was then I noticed the change in the sky. It was nearly five o'clock, the time when the sky should have turned a deep blue. Instead there now seemed to be a peculiar border of light around each cloud.

“There's something out there,” I told Minnie. The horizon seemed lit from within.

“Is Beaumont looking through the garbage cans again?” Minnie asked. “I've told him a hundred times he's more than welcome to look through the garbage while it's still in the house.”

“It's not Beaumont,” I said, going over to the window to push back the lace curtains. “It's the sky.”

As soon as I spoke, we heard the explosion; it was ten times louder than thunder, and the echo alone made the floor vibrate with shock.

“Minnie, look!” I said. The sky had lit up with flames; sparks leapt above the harbor like dancers. Minnie ran to stand with me at the window; as our breath fogged the glass we watched the fire. Now sea gulls fled the harbor and dove to the sidewalks for shelter. The floor beneath us still shook, a soft tremor that touched our feet; Minnie's teacup fell onto the floor, spilling golden seal in an oblong puddle.

“It's happened,” Minnie said. “Look over there.” She pointed east; thick purple smoke rolled over the harbor.

I was as nervous as Minnie was, but my training at work had taught me how to deal with disaster, along with heartache and injury. “Let's stay calm,” I told Minnie. “There's no reason to panic.”

“Calm?” Minnie said, turning on me. “It's the power plant.”

“Minnie,” I said, watching the purple clouds move toward town, but smiling all the same. “Don't be ridiculous; Angel Landing Three isn't operating yet.”

But Minnie wouldn't listen. “I wrote to Congressman Bruner ten years ago, when the plant was just a proposal. I told him this would happen.”

Outside, the sirens had begun to scream; dogs gathered on street corners and howled, their heads tossed back to the sky. We couldn't see the horizon anymore; the sky had become a terrible soup.

Minnie walked back to her chair and sat heavily. “This is it,” she sighed. “This is how it all ends.”

“This is certainly not the end,” I said. I bent to pick up the fallen teacup.

“I always wanted to know how the end would come,” Minnie said. “Not that I wanted to be there, you understand.”

I stared at Minnie uneasily, hoping that she would not decide to give up breathing, or slow her heart until it no longer beat; by the time I discovered the explosion was nothing more than thunder, the flames no more than the backfire of a supersonic jet, it would be too late—Minnie would be motionless, her tall body grown too heavy for me to lift from the easy chair.

“Just stop it,” I told my aunt. I went to the telephone. “I'm going to call Carter. He'll know if something's happened at the plant.”

Minnie opened her eyes. “You're going to call
him?
I don't believe it.”

I dialed the number; I let it ring seven times. “I'm sure he's there,” I whispered to Minnie, my hand over the receiver. But after eighteen rings I knew the Soft Skies office was empty. Carter was neither asleep on the mattress nor at his desk addressing fliers about solar energy.

“He's not there,” I conceded.

“Of course he's not,” Minnie said smugly. “I wouldn't be surprised if he's already evacuated. People with money are always the first to go. I wouldn't be surprised to hear he keeps a private plane ready in case of nuclear accidents. He may already be on his way to Venezuela.”

“How can you say that?” I asked Minnie. True, Carter was heir to the Sugarland fortune, money made in flour and wheat; the cereal named after his family had found its way onto most American breakfast tables. But Carter was estranged from his family; even in college he stayed in the dormitory during Easter and Christmas, refusing to join the family in Bermuda or Vail. “Carter's dedicated; he would never run away. My guess is he's at the power plant getting the story firsthand. I'll tell you what we'll do—we'll listen to the radio.”

“The radio,” Minnie said with scorn.

I dialed in jazz and a Bach concerto, but our local station, WSFF, stopped broadcasting after five. I couldn't find any news. “That's funny,” I said.

“Funny,” Minnie said bitterly.

“You're repeating everything I say,” I fumed. “Did you know that?”

“Repeating,” Minnie growled and then fell silent. We sat across from each other—Minnie in the easy chair, I in the rocker.

“Why don't we sing something,” I finally suggested. “That will keep us busy.”

“I'm seventy-four,” Minnie said. “I think my life may soon end because of an explosion at a nuclear power plant. Just what is it you'd like me to sing?”

I reached for a knitted afghan to throw over my shoulders; I rocked back and forth in my chair. Certainly Minnie was wrong about the power plant; nothing like that could ever happen in Fishers Cove; the tides might shift, a new café might open, the flowers that grew by the side of the road might bud and open, but surely nothing more than that.

Minnie suddenly jumped from her chair, as if she'd been startled, as if she'd been bitten, as if her heart were about to give out.

“What is it?” I cried.

“Beaumont,” she said. “Where is he?”

The old boarder had been the night watchman at Angel Landing III since the plant's beginnings. For Beaumont it was a job made in heaven; he hated daylight and loved uniforms. It was time for him to leave the house and walk down to the power plant. Minnie ran to the basement door.

“Beaumont,” she called.

When there was no answer from the basement, I suggested that Beaumont was probably somewhere in the neighborhood rummaging through garbage cans before reporting for work.

“He was killed,” Minnie sighed. “The first casualty of Angel Landing.”

“He's probably having coffee at Ruby's Café.”

“Coffee?” Minnie said. “Beaumont wouldn't touch the stuff.”

It was then we heard the rattling in the kitchen; the noise was faint, as if a mouse were moving between boxes of granola in the far cabinet. Minnie nodded in the direction of the kitchen. When she switched on the lights, we found Beaumont just as he was reaching for a jar of molasses; the old boarder blinked and lifted his hands up to protect his eyes from the sudden flash.

“I don't understand how you see in the dark,” Minnie said.

“I didn't do anything,” Beaumont said, hugging the jar of molasses to his chest.

“Of course you didn't,” Minnie said soothingly.

“I'll replace it next week,” Beaumont said of the molasses. “I ran out.”

“Listen to me, Beaumont,” Minnie said. “We caught you just in time, we thought you might have already left for work, and you're not supposed to report to the power plant tonight.”

“Yes I am,” Beaumont said, squinting at us. “At six.”

“No you're not,” Minnie insisted. “It's a holiday today. The plant is closed, I'm sure.”

“A holiday?” I said. “What holiday?”

Minnie eyed me gravely and then came up with, “Saint Elmo's Day.”

“Oh,” Beaumont said. “Nobody told me.”

“Didn't you hear the fireworks?” Minnie asked Beaumont. “You know Elmo is this town's patron saint.”

I kept quiet. I didn't dare to disagree, not only because Minnie quickly shot me a look of warning, but also because I, too, thought Beaumont would be better off at home, kept away from the explosion.

“I have the night off,” Beaumont said. He turned to Minnie. “What'll I do?”

“You'll have dinner and then you'll listen to the radio,” Minnie advised.

“All right,” Beaumont nodded. “I'll have soup.”

“Why don't you have dinner with us?” I suggested.

Minnie and Beaumont both looked at me, surprised.

“Oh, I couldn't,” Beaumont said.

“He likes to eat alone,” Minnie told me.

“Just this once,” I said.

“I couldn't,” Beaumont said, taking the borrowed molasses and heading toward the parlor and the basement door.

“I thought he might want company,” I explained to Minnie.

“He doesn't,” Minnie snapped. “Beaumont's been eating alone for twenty years. He likes it that way. There's nothing wrong in eating alone. He's a man of solitude; what kind of dinner conversation did you think he would make?”

“Well, I see that you and I can't have a conversation either. We never could. There's no point in trying.” I left the kitchen, went back to the parlor, and stood by the window. Outside, the sky was finally still; there was no wind, no stars.

Minnie came up behind me and stood to my left. “I'm on edge,” she said to me.

“Sure,” I shrugged.

“I'm an old woman,” Minnie said. “Sometimes I'm on edge.”

“Listen,” I said, “I understand.”

My aunt held the lace curtain in her hand. “I think something's happened,” she whispered.

By seven o'clock there was still no word about the explosion on the radio, and I began to wonder if perhaps Minnie and I had imagined the sirens and the smoke. But the sky was still violet, and water rings marked the wooden floor where the teacup had fallen. I made a fire in the wood-burning stove, and Minnie and I crouched in front of it, drinking sherry and eating crackers and cheese like two refugees. When the doorbell rang neither of us wanted to answer it.

“What could it be?” Minnie whispered. “Only bad news.”

I went to the door anyway; Carter Sugarland stood on the porch. He hadn't bothered with a coat, he wore old jeans and a woven white sweater; he stamped his feet like a tired horse and rubbed his frozen hands together.

“Do you believe this?” Carter said, kissing me so quickly he kissed the air instead of my lips. “Do you believe this shit?” Carter whispered as he came inside.

“What happened?” Minnie cried when she saw Carter. “Was it the power plant?”

Carter shook his long hair and sat in the rocking chair. “Do you have any Seagram's?” he asked me. “With a little water?”

I went into the kitchen for whiskey and water, and when I returned Minnie was standing in front of Carter with her hands on her hips.

“Big shot,” Minnie said to Carter. “You don't know any more than I do.”

Carter took off his rimless glasses and cleaned them on a doily. “I know more about what happened tonight than anyone else in this country.”

Minnie smiled. “Carter, darling, you're a wonderful boy, but you don't know any more than Natalie or I.”

Carter reached for the whiskey and took a long sip. “I was one of the first down there,” he told me. “I got to the gates of the power plant before the fire department got there.” He turned to my aunt. “So don't say I don't know anything, Minnie. It took me fifteen minutes to get to the power plant; it took the fire department twenty-seven minutes. I timed them.”

“What caused the explosion?” I asked.

“I get to the gate and show one of the rent-a-cops a phony pass. But it's no go, he won't let me by. ‘Listen to me,' I told him, ‘I'm going in. You can't stop me. I'm a friend of the earth, and I've got a right to know what's happening inside these gates.'”

“And?” I asked.

“And they wouldn't let me through the line.” Carter drank more whiskey and then rubbed his hands together. “I waited around with the construction workers and the reporters but no one was talking. No one was saying a thing.”

“Well I knew it,” Minnie sighed. “I knew it ten years ago when I wrote to Congressman Bruner. Nothing but trouble.”

Carter got up to put more wood on the fire in the cast-iron stove. “Don't be depressed,” he told Minnie.

“I'm much too old to be depressed,” Minnie murmured.

“This explosion may be a blessing in disguise. If this doesn't show Fishers Cove how dangerous their power plant is, I don't know what will. If that had been a working plant, hell, we wouldn't be here drinking whiskey. We wouldn't be here at all.”

“You're the only one drinking whiskey,” I said.

Minnie shook her head. “You're very naïve,” she told Carter.

“Hey, I'm not naïve,” Carter said. “That's one thing I'm not.”

“They'll say this accident was one in a million, they'll say it can never happen again,” Minnie said. “That's politics.”

“Minnie, you're out of touch,” Carter said, catching my eye and winking. “Why don't you leave politics to me?”

Minnie had gone to the window and stood in front of the white lace which had been draped there for nearly thirty years, long enough to begin to hold the scent of the harbor, just as if salt had been threaded into the fabric.

“Minnie?” I said. “Minnie?” I called again when she did not answer.

Minnie looked at me, and then turned back to the window. “The first summer we came here the harbor was so clear you could see the bottom, you could see the horseshoe crabs swimming in circles.”

Carter stoked the fire. “Is it freezing in here?” he asked me. “Maybe I'm sick. Maybe I have the chills.”

Minnie still hadn't moved from the window. I went to her and touched her shoulder. “I'll make dinner,” I said. “I know it's late, but we should still eat. Even I can make a salad.”

“No,” Minnie said. She turned to face me. “I can't eat. Not tonight. It would stick right here.” She pointed not to her throat but to her heart instead. “I'm tired,” Minnie said. “I'm much too tired.”