May Day Read online

  On my way home, I stopped at Swenson Nursery to pick up a flat of annuals. I needed to relax and clear my head, and gardening was my drug of choice after liquor and Nut Goodies. The spicy green scent comforted me on my drive.

  When I walked in my front door, Luna at my heels, I did an extra careful eyeball and nose scan of the place. I wanted to make sure there were no dolls or fish waiting for me. The front room was just as I had left it. There was a sectional couch in early tacky-cabin print, a small color TV that got channels 7 and 29 if I had the rabbit ears and tinfoil just right, a bookshelf high on the wall and another on the floor, and plants lining the windows. I didn’t like clutter. The more you had, the more you had to clean.

  The kitchen was divided from the front room by an island counter. My spices and oil neatly lined the countertops, and there was no bad smell that I could discern. I strode to the fridge, its front covered with pictures of people I knew and places I had been, and reached in for some string cheese. I moved to the table to read through the mail I had grabbed on the way in and saw that it was two bills and the community newsletter. I paged through the newsletter. It was mostly community ed classes—volleyball, computer basics, lefse making.

  I walked over to the office and spare bedroom, which I normally kept closed. Both rooms were stacked wall to ceiling to wall with Sunny’s stuff, and both appeared untouched.

  I stepped over to my bedroom and was gratified to see Tiger Pop sprawled on the bedspread in a fading sunbeam. When I was five, my dad told me I could be anything I wanted to be when I grew up. “Then I want to be a cat,” I said. My cat reminded me daily why that had been one of the best ideas I’d ever had. I ran my fingers over his sleek calico fur, pausing to scratch his favorite spot by his tail. The rest of the room was in order—a dresser, a closet, a mirror, and a nightstand.

  The main bathroom looked good as well, except for the telltale rust stains made permanent by well water. I wondered what that orange would do to my hair over a period of time if it stained plastic and porcelain so profoundly. I could also smell Tiger Pop’s litter box. I was thinking about training Luna to be one of those poop-eating dogs to take care of that problem. If you pass a problem off for long enough, it sometimes really does fix itself.

  I stripped off my clothes into a pile on the floor and pulled on a gray T-shirt from a bluegrass festival over a bikini top and some weathered jeans, their knees permanently freckled with dirt. It was time to garden, and Tiger Pop followed me outdoors. Outside, I knelt in the sun-warmed dirt, hands on knees, and closed my eyes. I shut out Jeff, I shut out the birds, I shut out my dad, and I shut out fear.

  When I felt myself fully in the moment and the dirt, I dragged my fingers through the spongy soil and released the rich smell of the earth. First, I would weed. This was mostly cosmetic, as few of the bad guys had had time to grow since I was last here. The little sprigs I did find were so close to the earth yet that I had to dig my fingernails down and hook them at the base to pull them out whole. They came up smoothly, their roots white and tender. I laid them on the dirt to be sacrificed to tomorrow’s sun. If it was cruel to let them die slowly, so close to the salvation of the moist dirt, I didn’t think about it. There would be order in my garden.

  Despite its appearance, gardening is rigorous work if you do it right. I was sweating from the concentrated activity, and stripped off my T-shirt. The sinking sun felt purifying, and the dirt was warm and solid in my hands. When pictures of Kennie’s disturbing beauty pageant began to sneak in, I moved from vegetables to flowers. I cleaned out the twelve scattered flower/weed beds that Sunny had started last spring and never really followed through on. This gave the late tulips and daffodils a new blush and allowed me to plant the eight packs of annuals I had bought on my way home.

  My heart started to triphammer at the thought of crashing the party tonight, so I moved to planting, patting down the cooling soil around the spicy orange and gold marigolds, white alyssum, and sweet red and deep purple petunias in the well-lit areas. In the shade gardens I planted wax begonia, impatiens, and coleus. The red and white begonias made excellent edging with their glossy bronze and green leaves. The impatiens were pink and lavender and framed by the greens, whites, and burgundies of the coleus leaves. I also dug down to worm level to plant dahlia bulbs and scraped the earth to seed some zinnias.

  When the sun began to set around eight, I realized I had been in the dirt for a couple hours. My hands were rough, and I knew it would be at least a week before I got all the dirt from under my fingernails. I smiled at my cat, who was sucking up the last bit of sun next to me, eyeing the dog warily. I patted his side, leaving little dirt balls to irritate him. I rolled my stiff shoulders and pulled myself up, my legs creaking from all the time kneeling. My two gardening tools—a little dirt fork and a hand spade—went back to their home by the front steps. After my outdoor cleanup was done, I sat on the front porch, which was really a splintery reddish picnic table with some steps built into it. I put my chin in my hands and looked down at the lake, and then back at the very neat rows of flowers I had planted. My mind, body, and heart were reconnected.

  “Come on, Tiger Pop. It’s time to fill our empty heads.”

  Back in the kitchen, I washed my hands until the water ran clear and then cracked a Dr. Pepper, poured a couple fingers of vodka into it, and popped some homestyle butter popcorn in the microwave. I rarely drank pop, as it made me weird, but I thought I deserved a treat. Plus, I didn’t know how late I would be staying up tonight, and the caffeine would do me good. When I had my snacks ready to go, I invited Tiger Pop to watch TV with me. He was meditating on my bed, and I felt rude for addressing him directly. I flopped on the scratchy couch and grabbed the least-used remote in the county. When I saw I was only getting Fox, I put it down and sat back to watch an old episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Sometimes I really liked my life.

  It was spring and dark came around eight p.m. I didn’t know what time was appropriate to arrive at a masquerade, but ten seemed like a safe bet. Any earlier and I might be one of two or three awkward people in masks trying to make small talk.

  Come nine-thirty, I couldn’t wait anymore. Fox’s Friday night lineup was stultifying, reinforcing what society had been teaching me since I was old enough to get my ears pierced: anyone worth their salt will be out on a Friday night meeting people and being exciting. Well, I could take a hint.

  I changed into my now-standard spying outfit of black jeans, black turtleneck, and tennis shoes and headed out the door. Eagle Lake, the site of the party according to the invite, was approximately ten miles south of where I lived. If there wasn’t too much farm machinery, tourists pulling boats, or deer on the way, I’d make it in under fifteen minutes. I planned to drive straight to the public access boat landing about a mile from where the party was supposed to be. I would park my car there and walk so I wouldn’t be recognized by my vehicle when I arrived.

  When I reached the divided highway, I took a left on Eagle Lake Road. I drove about two miles before the road changed from tar to gravel, and another three-quarters mile until I saw a yard light obscured by trees. It reminded me of Lartel’s house, except the mailbox was white and I could see peeks of a blue house through the white oaks. There were lights blazing and cars in the driveway.

  I drove a little farther until I passed by an approach. I turned my car around and drove back to the public access. There were seven other cars parked there, which was a lot for 9:47 p.m. Plus, none of them had boat trailers hooked on. Looks like I wasn’t the only one who wanted to hang low, though I didn’t recognize any of the vehicles.

  The blue house was a straight one-mile shot through the woods on the south side of the road. Given the number of cars in the access lot, I decided it would be best to wear my disguise from the word go, though I felt like a dork traipsing through the moonlit forest in a Harlequin mask. I couldn’t get the picture out of my head of me stuck in a bear trap, passed out from pain, found all in black and masked. I
was so engrossed in this potential shame that I almost walked straight into a tall man, back to me, peeing.

  “Sorry,” I said. It was the knee-jerk apology of someone who has accidentally walked into a bathroom stall they thought was empty.

  He quickly shook, zipped, and turned to me. Everything below his eyes was covered in an elaborate feathered and sequined veil, but it didn’t disguise his dark beard and mustache. What I thought were black pants and a shirt turned out to be belly dancer trousers and a bikini top under a transparent blouse. It looked like something Barbara Eden would wear on I Dream of Jeannie.

  He looked away quickly. “Not a problem.” He jogged ahead and out of sight.

  I looked around and behind me. I didn’t see any other hairy, peeing Bedouins, so I continued on. I was much more alert now, but the only sounds I heard were branches snapping under my tennis shoes and the breeze in the tops of the trees.

  I was nearly out of the woods when a dark shape swooped at me like a pterodactyl. It knocked off my mask and scratched at my shoulder. I ducked, hands over my head, and waited for the next attack. I heard a heavy shape land on a nearby branch and risked a peek.

  “Whoo whoo.”

  Shit. An owl. The birds were turning on me, just like I knew they would. I scrabbled around on the forest floor until I felt my mask and hunch-walked toward the house. I tried to move completely unlike a mouse, but it’s hard to seem ominous when you’re crouching. When I got to the clearing, I fought the urge to stand up straight and run. If that owl was going to get me, he was going to work for it.

  I heard subdued music coming from inside. I checked to make sure I still had my keys and some money in my pockets. If this was some kind of direct sales party, like Gina had said, I wanted to have some cash on hand so I would blend in.

  I circled the house, but all the windows had shades covering them so I couldn’t see in. In the front lawn were those wooden ornaments that look like big ladies leaning over and exposing their butts, and an excited white poodle was tied to the lone oak tree in the lawn. My feet crunched on acorns as I walked to the door. It looked like the only way to go was in.

  I reached for the doorknob and entered, confused by the dim light. From all the blazing lights in the yard, I had expected it to be much brighter inside. A firm hand grabbed my wrist right inside the door. “Invitation.”

  I turned to the voice and saw a man in an exact replica of my outfit—black shirt, black pants, and tennis shoes, topped by a full-face Harlequin mask. He was thick-necked and large and had a faint vanilla odor about him that I couldn’t place. I pulled the invite out of my back pocket and handed it to him. He glanced briefly at it and returned it. “Which room do you want to go to?”

  What kind of party was this? I couldn’t see anyone but this guy, and the music was no louder inside that it had been outside. I played with the idea of mumbling something, but I took a chance and revealed my newness. “This is my first time. What are my choices?”

  His neck muscles relaxed a little, and he pulled a tiny white pot with a black and yellow cover out of his back pocket. He applied a generous slab of Carmex to his lips without lifting his mask, and then nodded toward the top of the stairs. “First-timer. We’re glad to have you. You want the Red Room, first door on your left at the top of the stairs. They’ll take care of you there.”

  It was Battle Lake Police Chief Gary Wohnt dressed as my disguise doppelgänger. Was he doing off-duty security work? I nodded my head, not wanting to use my voice any more than necessary, and walked up the stairs. Something was not right about this. I had felt less anxiety walking into Lartel’s house. I heard a click behind me, and suddenly a disco strobe light began orbiting color off the walls on the bottom floor.

  When I got to the top of the stairs, the music was slightly louder but still muffled. If memory served, the tune was the Waitresses’ “I Know What Boys Like.” I stood in front of the first door on my left at the top of the stairs. It was a very ordinary entrance, and next to it was a very ordinary table with a doily and a bowl of mixed nuts. I opened the door and walked in with feigned confidence.

  No one was startled to see me. On the contrary, it was me who acted like she had just walked onto a Broadway stage when she meant to go into her bathroom. It took me a good three minutes to register what I was seeing, due to the black light flickering in the center of

  the room, the psychedelic free love posters, and the large quantity of smoke, most of it smelling too sweet to be from cigarettes. It looked for all the world like one of the basement parties I had attended when I was in college at the U of M, except for three important differences: everyone here was wearing masks, hardly anyone was wearing clothes, and most of the bodies I was getting a gander at were a good fifty years past their prime displaying age.

  In fact, I couldn’t see a body that looked under seventy, though I hadn’t had any experience judging naked old people. I had always gauged them with their clothes on, and the sheer amount of loose skin and hair everywhere but their heads overwhelmed my senses. Most of the aged partiers were lounging and talking, and it looked like a group in the back was passing a bong. I heard the telltale gurgle from my post at the door, and I’m pretty sure I caught a glimpse of Mrs. Berns as she pulled up her mask to get a better hit.

  I sensed a small pocket of hardcores to my left redefining what

  it meant to bump uglies, but I wasn’t going to look too closely. I thought I could hear papery skin chafing. Over all this floated mild Ravi Shankar–esque tunes.

  “Welcome to the Red Room.”

  I turned to my right to see who had spoken. Frankly, I was hoping by the lack of reaction as I entered the room that I was invisible. This was scary. “Thank you,” I said to the little old man with the Batman mask, a green plastic lei around his neck his only other cover. I tried to keep my eyes on his, but I couldn’t help running a quick glance down to the genitals tucked under his paunch. He looked like I imagine Mickey Rooney would look naked about this time in his life, if I had ever imagined Mickey naked. Which I hadn’t.

  “Are you here for the smoke, or could I interest you in a tall cool one?”

  “A tall cool one would be great.” The smoke in the room had already made my mouth dry. I needed a minute to catch my breath, and it would be good to have something to focus on besides breasts and balls that hung at about the same latitude.

  Batman grabbed my hand and led me to a chair by the window. This really was a large room. Now that my eyes had adjusted to the strange light, I saw that a wall had been knocked out, the little divider left at the top covered in stenciled grapes. I sat in the chair, and Batman called over his shoulder, “Arnie, she wants a tall cool one.”

  Arnie appeared out of nowhere and stood in front of me, the picture of aged aloofness. He had a half-mask that allowed him to suck on the cigarette that he undersmoked, snitching and snatching at it like it was an annoyance. His pork-and-bean eyes glistening through the eyeholes stared at something far away. However, what really drew my attention was the large erection he held at about eye level, mere inches from my face. My mouth clamped shut in automatic safety mode, but I couldn’t help marveling at the unwrinkled length of it. The whole man’s body was a monument to extra skin with built-in pockets, and here was this immense, smooth penis stuck in the middle of it all like a banana on a Shar-Pei.

  “Here’s your tall cool one,” he said in a bored voice. I swear if he had a watch on he would have looked at it.

  I stared at his penis, and it stared back at me. The only thing I was blowing tonight was my cover.

  The door to the Red Room suddenly slammed open, and I had to quell my latent high-school-bred urge to jump out the window. But it wasn’t the cops; it was Kennie Rogers. Her face was amazingly unmasked, which somehow made her seem the most naked in this room of geriatric bacchanalia. “Where’s that first-timer?” she trilled. “Come on out, don’t y’all hide from me!”

  Her arrival took the wind out of Arnie’s sails, and n
ow it was just me, him, and his sleepy snail by the window. How quickly the mighty do fall. I suppose he needed the extra blood to keep his heart going. I raised my hand.

  “There you are! Come on now, come with Mama Kennie. You gotta tour all the rooms, darnit, before you get too comfortable in the ever-lovin’ Red Room. The rest of y’all go back to business. Free love is the best love!”

  She grabbed my hand, and God knows I was thankful to be led out. I think I saw a tube of KY jelly as we passed a grouping of highbacked chairs in the center, but it could have been denture cream. Once in the bright light of the hallway, Kennie let go of my hand and turned to me. She had on her usual heaping helping of makeup, and her frosty hair was trained under a tiara. Her costume was identical to what she had been wearing in her strange beauty pageant just hours before, except that she no longer had the “Miss Battle Lake” banner. A bouquet of roses would not have looked out of place in the crook of her arm, but her expression was icy.

  “Mira, Mira, Mira. Y’all just don’t give up, do you, honey chile?”

  Shit! I thought my disguise was at least as good as anyone else’s. Under her imperious eye, I felt dirty and trapped after what I had just seen. The hallway closed in on me. I thought of running, but I could see Gary Wohnt, still masked, at the bottom of the stairs with his arms crossed bodyguard style. It must have been him watching Kennie at the high school earlier, though I couldn’t shake the feeling that it might have been Lartel. I wondered what current reasons Kennie had to spend time with either man.

  Kennie pulled out a pocket mirror from some secret fold in her dress and clicked it open. She pushed her eyeliner around and puffed her hair. All the movement scared up a cloud of drugstore perfume. “I wondered where Jeff’s invitation had gone. It wasn’t found on the body, at least that’s what I heard. I didn’t see it when I came to the library yesterday, either.” She snapped the compact closed. “But that’s because y’all had it, isn’t it?”