"A little. My girlfriend and I split up."
"Girlfriend?"
"I don't much care for the term either. How about lady-friend?"
She laughed. "Better. How long had you been together?"
"Sixteen years."
"Sixteen, really?"
"She was married before and afraid to try it again, at least until her nut case of a husband decided to give it another try."
"No wonder you've escaped to Sage."
"Just getting away for a while."
"Then this is the spot. Calvin, I'm sorry for what happened to you, but sometimes it's better than the alternative—spending the rest of your life with someone who doesn't love you, or you don't love, or both."
She rubbed her palms on her housecoat as if her hands had suddenly become wet, then stood up and walked quickly to the kitchen. That little snippet of dialogue—her little confession or analysis or whatever it was—seemed to have taken her by surprise. I had a feeling that we would not be revisiting the topic any time soon.
"Cream? sugar?" she hollered.
"Just cream," I said. "Actually I almost had a cup of coffee at Walter's."
"Chez Walter," she said, handing me a smallish cup. "He served you eggs, right?"
"He did."
"That's all he really knows how to make. Does a decent job, though he's terrified of overcooking them."
"Mine were a little runny."
"He played it safe. He hasn't really mastered the side dishes though—toast, coffee, salt, pepper. He's a good man."
"And a tall one."
"About six-five," she said.
"Does he live alone over there?"
"He used to take in some boarders on occasion, but he stopped that. He's been here a long time. Found a home."
"And a restaurant, sort of."
"You'd be surprised," she said, "in the summer he does okay. There are a few antique shops around; people come down from Red Lodge and stop on their way to Yellowstone. Walter winds up feeding some of them. Like I said, he's a good man. Come on, Calvin," she said, and without warning stood up, "I want to show you something."
I picked up my cup and we passed through the kitchen and into a hall that led to another connected building. She took out a key, unlocked a door with the decaled numeral 1 on it, and showed me into a dank room with a single bed, a dresser, a chair—and cartons stacked nearly to the ceiling covering every unfurnished square foot of floor space. "This, Calvin, is why I can't rent you a place. By the time we cleared an area for you to sleep, it'd be morning. And if I didn't clear it, I'd violate every fire code in Montana."
"I don't suppose there'd be an inspection tonight...if that's the only reason," I said.
I discerned what might have been head movement—reluctant and unconvincing—but not exactly dismissive. I remembered Walter's admonition that no is no.
"I'll gladly move some stuff now," I said, "or not, It's entirely your call. I can clear a place, then move the rest tomorrow, or, you know."
"Walter must really have read you the riot act. He can be a little over-protective."
I chose not to comment. If she was having second thoughts, I didn't want to interrupt them."
"It's pretty late," she said.
I wondered if my promise to Walter prevented my being abject and slavish. I gave it a shot. "I promise if you let me tough it out tonight, I won't light any candles or burn rubbish in here. I won't even touch anything flammable or think about matches. And if there's a fire marshal in town, I won't mention it to him. Tomorrow I'll move those cartons or look for another place—your call."
She frowned, checked her watch, looked at the boxes.
"Wait here," she said, and left the room. I sat on the edge of the bed, intrigued by all the neatly packed, carefully taped, sporadically unlabeled boxes. When she returned a few minutes later the housecoat was gone in favor of brown cords and a cinnamon colored crew neck sweater. Beneath that shapeless housecoat she had hidden a well-proportioned and athletic body. She looked like a runner, a cyclist, maybe a mountain climber given the surroundings. And on her feet, it almost goes without saying, were the same slippers I'd been wearing at Walter's a short time before. Did anyone in Sage not own a pair? Or a dozen?
For the next forty-five minutes, we hauled boxes from one room to another—actually to three other rooms—all containing similar cartons, odd pieces of furniture, a few small appliances, and even a rack of coats. Although some of the cartons we carried were weighed down with books and magazines, most seemed fairly light—more clothing I figured, possibly her husband's that she couldn't part with, though it was amateurish transference on my part: squirreling away memoirs and agonizing over them—that was me.
With the room finally legally empty I discovered that, besides a door that led into the house, there was one that opened to the outside, windowless and drab with a double lock and a transom. Any natural light that entered that room would have to worm its way through that small pane of frosted glass or either of the two undersized windows on the same wall, each covered with heavy, beige curtains. Between them was a painting of a severe looking, weather-beaten man sitting astride a scruffy, light gray horse. A cigarette dangled languidly from the left corner of his mouth, the smoke trailing this way and that in the evening-calm air. Behind him the moon rose over a dramatic mountain range, snowcapped and forbidding, bathed in purple light. The tarnished brass plate on the frame read "Evening by the Tetons" by someone named Stewart Koss. It was the kind of painting one usually finds propped up against a chainless bicycle at a weekend garage sale back east.
"It's from a motel supply outlet," she said. "Those aren't the Tetons. They don't look like that—you'll see. I guess Mr. Koss was counting on most people never seeing them in person."
"Truth is supposed to be beauty."
"He probably forgot. Are you a poet?"
"The opposite. I'm an English teacher."
"That's the opposite?"
"Poets write the stuff; we suck the life out of it by interpreting it to death."
"You did that?"
"I tried not to. Want to hear my ‘Grecian Urn' lecture on art and artists? I can condense it to three hours."
"Maybe you need a good night's sleep a little more."
"But if I start now, I'd be almost finished by tomorrow."
She smiled and leaned against the door jamb. "I thought poets wrote about love and death? What happened to all that?"
"Not enough love, too much death."
"Poor excuse to just give up."
I laughed. "I had an inkling when I heard Bruckner, but now I know for sure: you're a romantic."
She ignored the accusation.
"And you, Calvin, which do you like better?"
"What do you mean?"
"Of the two," she said, "do you like poems about love better than poems about death?"
"Death," I said, "and dying."
"That must be why they fired you. Too morbid for the kids."
"They didn't fire me. I retired."
"You don't look decrepit enough to retire."
"I just wanted to move on, try something else. Before when you mentioned the Tetons you said ‘you'll see.' Are they nearby?"
"I wouldn't