The Invited(22)

“This one’s from a vineyard in Vermont,” he’d said proudly, holding up the bottle of Marquette.

This was to be part of their new life: buying local. Eating and drinking local.

But the truth was, at that point she didn’t care if the goddamn wine was made from skunk cabbage from the bog: she just wanted a drink.

Nate had also bought a local paper. The story of the crash was on the front page. Helen saw the smiling school photos of the dead teenagers and flipped it over, unable to look. It was too terrible. She was trying hard not to take it as an ominous sign of their new lives here.

She took a deep breath, looked away from the newspaper.

We are meant to be here, she told herself. We are living the life of our dreams.

“There’s going to be a vigil tonight at the high school,” Nate said. “Maybe we should go.”

Helen shook her head. “No. I can’t bear it. And it would be weird. We just got here. We’re not really part of the community yet. I’d feel…voyeuristic or something, you know?”

Nate nodded. “I see what you mean.”

After they finished the pizza (which was crappy, with too-sweet sauce and canned mushrooms, but still satisfying) and polished off the first bottle of wine, Nate got out his laptop and started playing the animal noises.

Finally, mercifully, he stopped, put the computer away.

Helen was trying hard not to be annoyed with him, making herself think of all his good points, reminding herself of how much she loved him. She was just stressed. There was no need to take it out on poor Nate.

She thought back to when they met, both new teachers at Palmer Academy. It was at a faculty mixer the first week of school. Nate had worn a tie with the periodic table on it. There was another woman there, Stella Flemming, the English teacher, who kept cornering Nate, saying she wanted to put him and his tie in one of her poems. The first time Helen noticed him, she wondered why the handsome science teacher with the funny tie was looking at her so strangely. Later, she smiled, realizing that he’d been giving Helen pleading save me looks all night. At last, she walked over, touched his arm, and said, “You’re the science teacher, right?” He nodded encouragingly. “I was hoping you could help me. I hear the Pleiades are visible in the sky this time of year, but I’m not sure just where to look.”

    He smiled. “Ah, yes, the Seven Sisters. I’d be happy to point them out. Excuse us please, Stella.”

“Thank you,” Nate whispered, once they were out of earshot.

They walked out to the back lawn near the tennis courts and he showed her the stars. “Right there,” he said, taking her hand and pointing with it. “The Pleiades were the daughters of Atlas and the sea nymph Pleione,” he explained. “Zeus transformed them into doves, then into stars.”

“Lovely,” she said.

“Your dress reminds me of starlight,” he told her then. She looked down, saw the way the pale fabric seemed to shimmer in the lights around the tennis court.

“Do you think Stella will come out looking for you?” Helen asked.

Nate laughed. “Poor Stella. Maybe. She’s had a bit too much wine, I think.”

“I heard her saying she wanted to put you in a poem,” Helen said.

Nate laughed again. “Like I said, too much wine.”

“So you’re not a fan of poetry?”

“Oh, I’m a big fan. In fact, I even write a bit from time to time.”

Now Helen laughed. “Really?”

He nodded, and in a half imitation of poor Stella, he said to Helen, “Be careful, I might just put you and your glimmering starlight dress in a poem.”

She laughed again, but the next day, she’d found a typed poem in her faculty mailbox: “Helen Talks History in a Dress of Stars.” It wasn’t half bad (not that Helen was qualified to judge poetry). She had it still and would tell people, years later, that it was the poem that won her over immediately, the poem that made her realize Nate was The One.

“We got a lot done today,” he said now.

“Mm-hmm.”

“We should let the concrete cure a few days, but I’m thinking we can get the first-floor walls framed and ready to go up while we wait. Start cutting the pieces for the floor, too.”

    “I’d like to get the garden laid out,” Helen said. “Then we can get some plant starts at the farmers’ market on Saturday.”

“Yeah, sure. Absolutely,” Nate said. Their plan was to just do a small kitchen garden this year: some greens, tomatoes, cukes, a few herbs. Next year, when they weren’t busy with building, they’d expand to a proper garden, put in berry bushes, a few fruit trees. They’d laid it all out on paper: their grand plan with year-by-year goals.

“And I really want to get into town and do a little research. See what I can find out about the history of our new land.”

“Sounds good,” he said.

Nate cleared the dirty plates, pizza box, and empty wine bottle off the table, pulled out the house plans they’d carefully designed, and laid them out.

It was strange to see them here now, to realize that they’d actually begun to take shape—this house they’d planned, constructed on paper and in their heads and conversations.

The saltbox was a simple design. Helen loved the name saltbox and the history of the design. It had been popular in colonial New England and named for the lidded box people had kept salt in. Classic lines, a chimney at the center, the rear of the house a single story, the front a full two stories.